npr--2020-08-29--TikTok Workers Feel 'Anxiety,' 'Anger,' And 'Rage,' Amid Trump Crackdown

Patrick Ryan is sitting on a couch in the garage of his house in California 's San Mateo County .
Dressed in aviator-style glasses and cowboy boots , he talks intensely about his job as a technical manager at TikTok —a job that politicians in Washington have put at risk .
This week , Ryan filed a lawsuit against President Trump and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross , thereby becoming the public face of TikTok employees fed up with the administration 's efforts to ban the video-sharing app because it is owned by a Chinese company .
`` Sometimes it 's @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sometimes it 's disappointment .
Sometimes it 's rage .
It 's a mixture of things , '' Ryan said of the feelings he and his colleagues have had lately .
Indeed , it is an emotional experience when the president of the United States marshals the powers of the executive branch to squash your company 's business , especially just as the company 's growth is soaring .
TikTok , which gained popularity for showcasing short videos of dance challenges , lip-syncing and cooking tips , has been downloaded more than 100 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ emerged as one of the fastest-growing apps during the coronavirus pandemic .
TikTok said it planned to hire 10,000 workers in the U.S. over the next three years .
But on Aug. 6 , Trump signed an executive order outlawing `` any transaction '' between U.S. citizens and TikTok 's Beijing-based owner , Bytedance .
The order declares a national emergency over TikTok , citing national security concerns .
Ryan , 51 , arrived at TikTok five months ago after nearly a decade at Google .
In addition to being a technical manager @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lawsuit calls Trump 's action unconstitutional , alleging due process and other violations .
Ryan also writes in the suit that the president 's official actions against the company have `` defamed and disgraced '' TikTok employees .
`` It 's going to be prohibited for our company and for anybody to transfer money to us or for us to pay any payments or transactions of any kind to any person , so we want to stop that , '' Ryan said .
`` We also want to make sure that we continue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Friday night , in late July , when President Trump declared aboard Air Force One that he intended to ban TikTok .
Fittingly enough , Ryan first found out about Trump 's remarks from his two daughters , 15 and 13 , who watched a video about the comments on TikTok .
Since then , TikTok has filed a lawsuit on behalf of the company seeking to block the Aug. 6 directive , which is the first of two executives orders Trump signed targeting TikTok .
Ryan , however , is forging @ @ @ @ @ @ @ money for the suit online .
TikTok is not officially a part of his legal battle .
That said , the company did not discourage his effort .
`` I hear from employees all the time on a one-to-one basis in terms of what their concerns are and their fears , in many ways , '' Ryan said .
`` The questions are all very similar : What does this mean ?
Does this mean I 'm going to lose my job ? ''
It could , according to Ryan .
He points @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the U.S. on work visas , which Trump 's executive order may imperil .
Trump 's crackdown could force another , less dire outcome : If ByteDance sells TikTok to a U.S. company to satisfy the administration , TikTok 's 1,500 employees may have a new corporate owner .
Perhaps even be Microsoft and Walmart , which have put in a joint bid to acquire TikTok .
That would solve the problems with TikTok the administration cites : Officials say having a Beijing owner leaves Americans ' data susceptible to Chinese authorities , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ '' National security experts outside of the White House say under Chinese law , companies must comply with government requests from the authoritarian regime .
As of now , though , such requests remain theoretical , since Trump officials have not offered any proof that such data has ever been sought by Beijing .
Ryan , who oversees TikTok 's servers , said he knows firsthand that the data of Americans stays in the U.S. , primarily in Virginia , with a backup server in Singapore .
`` I spend a lot of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And understanding what is going on , '' he said .
`` We look very closely at the dataflows of the network , and I can say with extreme confidence that there is no shadow network . ''
Washington , according to Ryan , is unfairly singling out TikTok because its top executives are in China .
He notes big American tech companies like Google , Apple and Microsoft make products that are banned in China , yet the companies have a significant presence in the country .
`` Nobody is accusing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Apple USA , '' Ryan said .
`` So I do n't know why that 's the case here , '' he said .
In the midst of talks about TikTok 's future , the company 's U.S.-based top executive , Kevin Mayer , quit earlier this week .
Ryan said Mayer 's surprise departure was a blow to the company , though he said it will not stop his quest to fight for TikTok employees .
`` I certainly did n't take this case on because I was worried about Kevin Mayer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ took this case on because I 'm worried about my colleagues around here who might be in a situation where they wo n't be able to find another job . ''
Even if an American company buys TikTok , Ryan said his legal challenge will continue .
Employees , he said , remain worried about those on worker-visas losing their sponsorship , in addition to fears over changes in pay , benefits and workplace conditions .
`` A deal is not going to end this for me , '' Ryan said .
Editor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ videos from Planet Money that appear on the social media platform .

TikTok Workers Feel 'Anxiety,' 'Anger,' And 'Rage,' Amid Trump Crackdown
Enlarge this image toggle caption Bobby Allyn/NPR Bobby Allyn/NPR
Patrick Ryan is sitting on a couch in the garage of his house in California's San Mateo County. Dressed in aviator-style glasses and cowboy boots, he talks intensely about his job as a technical manager at TikTok —a job that politicians in Washington have put at risk.
This week, Ryan filed a lawsuit against President Trump and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, thereby becoming the public face of TikTok employees fed up with the administration's efforts to ban the video-sharing app because it is owned by a Chinese company.
"Sometimes it's anxiety. Sometimes it's anger. Sometimes it's disappointment. Sometimes it's rage. It's a mixture of things," Ryan said of the feelings he and his colleagues have had lately.
Indeed, it is an emotional experience when the president of the United States marshals the powers of the executive branch to squash your company's business, especially just as the company's growth is soaring.
TikTok, which gained popularity for showcasing short videos of dance challenges, lip-syncing and cooking tips, has been downloaded more than 100 million times in the U.S. and has emerged as one of the fastest-growing apps during the coronavirus pandemic. TikTok said it planned to hire 10,000 workers in the U.S. over the next three years.
But on Aug. 6, Trump signed an executive order outlawing "any transaction" between U.S. citizens and TikTok's Beijing-based owner, Bytedance. The order declares a national emergency over TikTok, citing national security concerns.
Ryan, 51, arrived at TikTok five months ago after nearly a decade at Google. In addition to being a technical manager, he's a lawyer. His lawsuit calls Trump's action unconstitutional, alleging due process and other violations. Ryan also writes in the suit that the president's official actions against the company have "defamed and disgraced" TikTok employees.
"It's going to be prohibited for our company and for anybody to transfer money to us or for us to pay any payments or transactions of any kind to any person, so we want to stop that," Ryan said. "We also want to make sure that we continue to get paid."
Ryan remembers the Friday night, in late July, when President Trump declared aboard Air Force One that he intended to ban TikTok. Fittingly enough, Ryan first found out about Trump's remarks from his two daughters, 15 and 13, who watched a video about the comments on TikTok.
Since then, TikTok has filed a lawsuit on behalf of the company seeking to block the Aug. 6 directive. Trump signed a separate order targeting TikTok requiring the company to sell its U.S. assets in 90 days.
Ryan, however, is forging his own path. He is raising money for the suit online. TikTok is not officially a part of his legal battle. That said, the company did not discourage his effort.
"I hear from employees all the time on a one-to-one basis in terms of what their concerns are and their fears, in many ways," Ryan said. "The questions are all very similar: What does this mean? Does this mean I'm going to lose my job?"
It could, according to Ryan. He points out that many TikTok employees are in the U.S. on work visas, which Trump's executive order may imperil.
Trump's crackdown could force another, less dire outcome: If ByteDance sells TikTok to a U.S. company to satisfy the administration, TikTok's 1,500 employees may have a new corporate owner. Perhaps even be Microsoft and Walmart, which have put in a joint bid to acquire TikTok.
That would solve the problems with TikTok the administration cites: Officials say having a Beijing owner leaves Americans' data susceptible to Chinese authorities, an accusation Ryan deems "absurd."
National security experts outside of the White House say under Chinese law, companies must comply with government requests from the authoritarian regime.
As of now, though, such requests remain theoretical, since Trump officials have not offered any proof that such data has ever been sought by Beijing.
Ryan, who oversees TikTok's servers, said he knows firsthand that the data of Americans stays in the U.S., primarily in Virginia, with a backup server in Singapore.
"I spend a lot of time making sure that network is safe. And understanding what is going on," he said. "We look very closely at the dataflows of the network, and I can say with extreme confidence that there is no shadow network."
Washington, according to Ryan, is unfairly singling out TikTok because its top executives are in China. He notes big American tech companies like Google, Apple and Microsoft make products that are banned in China, yet the companies have a significant presence in the country.
"Nobody is accusing the management in Apple China of controlling Apple USA," Ryan said. "So I don't know why that's the case here," he said.
In the midst of talks about TikTok's future, the company's U.S.-based top executive, Kevin Mayer, quit earlier this week.
Ryan said Mayer's surprise departure was a blow to the company, though he said it will not stop his quest to fight for TikTok employees.
"I certainly didn't take this case on because I was worried about Kevin Mayer," he said. "I took this case on because I'm worried about my colleagues around here who might be in a situation where they won't be able to find another job."
Even if an American company buys TikTok, Ryan said his legal challenge will continue. Employees, he said, remain worried about those on worker-visas losing their sponsorship, in addition to fears over changes in pay, benefits and workplace conditions.
"A deal is not going to end this for me," Ryan said.
Editor's note: TikTok helps fund NPR-produced videos from Planet Money that appear on the social media platform.


npr--2020-08-29--Records From Once-Secret Archive Offer New Clues Into Vatican Response To Holocaust

Records From Once-Secret Archive Offer New Clues Into Vatican Response To Holocaust Vatican officials have always insisted Pope Pius XII did everything possible to save Jewish lives during World War II .
But many scholars accuse him of complicit silence while some 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust .
`` Pope Pius XII thought that he should not take sides in the war , '' says Brown University professor David Kertzer , `` and that therefore he should not be criticizing either side of the war , including the Nazis . ''
Kertzer has written extensively about popes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2015 Pulitzer Prize for his book The Pope and Mussolini , which traced the rise of fascism in Europe .
And he was among the first to have access to the Pius XII archives when the Vatican opened them in March , after decades of requests from scholars .
Kertzer has just published his early findings in an article for The Atlantic .
The newly unearthed documents — some imbued with anti-Semitic language — are shedding light on the pontiff 's behavior during the Nazis ' massacre of Jews .
They also reveal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Holocaust victims from being reunited with their relatives .
The historian found two documents that reveal an intense debate was under way in the Vatican in 1943 , when the Nazi occupiers of Rome rounded up more than 1,000 Jews and detained them in a military college 800 yards from St. Peter 's Square before packing them off to the Auschwitz concentration camp .
As the German ambassador to the Vatican reported to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler , the roundup occurred under the pope 's `` very windows . ''
Only 16 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ document newly found by Kertzer is a letter written by the pope 's longtime Jesuit emissary to Italy 's Fascist regime , the Rev .
Pietro Tacchi Venturi , who urged the pope to make a private , oral protest to the German ambassador .
He suggested Pius tell the ambassador that there is no reason to use violence against Italian Jews because the racial laws instituted five years earlier by Benito Mussolini 's dictatorial regime were `` sufficient to contain the tiny Jewish minority within its proper limits . ''
Pius asked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jewish affairs , Monsignor Angelo Dell'Acqua .
`` The second document that I found , '' Kertzer tells NPR , `` is Dell'Acqua 's thoroughly anti-Semitic document explaining why he thought the pope should not , in fact , speak out . ''
The prelate thought it would be too embarrassing to protest anti-Semitic measures when , over many centuries , ruling popes had confined Jews to ghettos and had forbidden them from practicing professions .
And , says Kertzer , Dell'Acqua thought the emissary 's letter was overly sympathetic to the Jews @ @ @ @ @ @ @ problems ... do threaten a healthy Christian society .
So why should the Church be speaking out for them when he says they have n't protested against the Nazis killing Christians ? ''
Pius never spoke out against Nazis killing Christians , Kertzer suggests , because he did n't want to offend many German Catholics who were ardent Nazis .
And so , again , Pius said nothing .
Dell'Acqua later became cardinal vicar of Rome .
Questions about Pius ' wartime role began to grow more widely starting in 1963 in response @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Rolf Hochhuth in his play The Deputy .
And still vivid memories in Rome of Pius ' behavior during the Nazi occupation of Rome have stymied efforts to beatify him .
Kertzer 's findings also cover the case of two Jewish orphans secretly baptized in France after their parents were deported to Auschwitz .
The case of the Finaly brothers , Robert and Gérald , was the most serious case affecting French Jews since the Dreyfus affair —in which a Jewish French Army captain was wrongly convicted of treason — a half-century earlier @ @ @ @ @ @ @ became a cause celebre .
Nuns , monks and a mother superior were put in jail for kidnapping when they defied court rulings to hand over the boys to their surviving relatives .
French Church officials invoked a centuries-old doctrine claiming the baptized boys were now Catholics and must not be raised by Jews .
In 1953 , when media coverage of the affair was turning against the Church , the archbishop of Lyon asked the pope for guidance .
`` This is when the Vatican began its involvement behind the scenes , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ months to issue instructions on how the Church should proceed , the Vatican is telling them to resist the law , '' says Kertzer .
`` They also specified to be sure that no one knows that these orders are coming from the Vatican or from the pope . ''
In 1945 , the Finaly brothers were two of the estimated 1,200 French Jewish orphans in France alone in non-Jewish families or institutions .
Across Europe , Kertzer believes , there were thousands more — secretly baptized and never reunited with their Jewish @ @ @ @ @ @ @ article that on Sept. 21 , 1945 , the secretary-general of the World Jewish Congress , Léon Kubowitzki , went to the Vatican to appeal for help in locating Jewish orphans .
Pius replied , `` We will give it all our attention . ''
Ultimately , the Finaly boys were reunited with their relatives in Israel where they now live in retirement .
Following his discoveries in the archives , Kertzer contacted Robert Finaly , who described to him what it was like when he and Gérald were being shuffled around in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were made to fear Jews , '' Kertzer says .
`` They were n't told that their family was trying to reclaim them .
And they were taught that Jews were damned by God and would live in eternal torment in hell when they died .
They were scared stiff of Jews , of being Jewish . ''
The historian says his findings help fill many of the behind-the-scenes gaps at the Vatican during the war and its aftermath .
But there is one question , says Kertzer , Pope Pius XII never @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so many thousands and hundreds of thousands , if not millions of Germans and their allies take part in the mass murder of Jewish children and old people and so forth , still thinking they were good Catholics ? ''
Kertzer says his findings reveal that the horrors of the Holocaust did not temper the Vatican 's anti-Semitic mindset .
That mindset was not repudiated until 20 years after the war when , with the Second Vatican Council , the Roman Catholic Church formally rejected the centuries-old Catholic doctrine that held Jews responsible @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ushered in a new era of Catholic-Jewish dialogue — and ultimately the opening of the Pius XII archives .
And , Kertzer says there 's still much more to be learned from the newly available trove of documents .

Records From Once-Secret Archive Offer New Clues Into Vatican Response To Holocaust
Enlarge this image toggle caption Anonymous/AP Anonymous/AP
Vatican officials have always insisted Pope Pius XII did everything possible to save Jewish lives during World War II. But many scholars accuse him of complicit silence while some 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.
"Pope Pius XII thought that he should not take sides in the war," says Brown University professor David Kertzer, "and that therefore he should not be criticizing either side of the war, including the Nazis."
Kertzer has written extensively about popes and the Jews. He won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for his book The Pope and Mussolini, which traced the rise of fascism in Europe. And he was among the first to have access to the Pius XII archives when the Vatican opened them in March, after decades of requests from scholars.
Kertzer has just published his early findings in an article for The Atlantic. The newly unearthed documents — some imbued with anti-Semitic language — are shedding light on the pontiff's behavior during the Nazis' massacre of Jews. They also reveal the pope's role in preventing orphans of Holocaust victims from being reunited with their relatives.
The historian found two documents that reveal an intense debate was under way in the Vatican in 1943, when the Nazi occupiers of Rome rounded up more than 1,000 Jews and detained them in a military college 800 yards from St. Peter's Square before packing them off to the Auschwitz concentration camp. As the German ambassador to the Vatican reported to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, the roundup occurred under the pope's "very windows." Only 16 of the deportees survived.
The first document newly found by Kertzer is a letter written by the pope's longtime Jesuit emissary to Italy's Fascist regime, the Rev. Pietro Tacchi Venturi, who urged the pope to make a private, oral protest to the German ambassador. He suggested Pius tell the ambassador that there is no reason to use violence against Italian Jews because the racial laws instituted five years earlier by Benito Mussolini's dictatorial regime were "sufficient to contain the tiny Jewish minority within its proper limits."
Pius asked for further advice from his expert on Jewish affairs, Monsignor Angelo Dell'Acqua.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Gregorio Borgia/AP Gregorio Borgia/AP
"The second document that I found," Kertzer tells NPR, "is Dell'Acqua's thoroughly anti-Semitic document explaining why he thought the pope should not, in fact, speak out."
The prelate thought it would be too embarrassing to protest anti-Semitic measures when, over many centuries, ruling popes had confined Jews to ghettos and had forbidden them from practicing professions.
And, says Kertzer, Dell'Acqua thought the emissary's letter was overly sympathetic to the Jews.
"He said Jews have caused problems ... do threaten a healthy Christian society. So why should the Church be speaking out for them when he says they haven't protested against the Nazis killing Christians?"
Pius never spoke out against Nazis killing Christians, Kertzer suggests, because he didn't want to offend many German Catholics who were ardent Nazis.
And so, again, Pius said nothing.
Dell'Acqua later became cardinal vicar of Rome.
Questions about Pius' wartime role began to grow more widely starting in 1963 in response to allegations raised by the German playwright Rolf Hochhuth in his play The Deputy. And still vivid memories in Rome of Pius' behavior during the Nazi occupation of Rome have stymied efforts to beatify him.
The Finaly brothers
Kertzer's findings also cover the case of two Jewish orphans secretly baptized in France after their parents were deported to Auschwitz.
The case of the Finaly brothers, Robert and Gérald, was the most serious case affecting French Jews since the Dreyfus affair —in which a Jewish French Army captain was wrongly convicted of treason — a half-century earlier. It dragged on for years and became a cause celebre. Nuns, monks and a mother superior were put in jail for kidnapping when they defied court rulings to hand over the boys to their surviving relatives.
French Church officials invoked a centuries-old doctrine claiming the baptized boys were now Catholics and must not be raised by Jews. In 1953, when media coverage of the affair was turning against the Church, the archbishop of Lyon asked the pope for guidance.
"This is when the Vatican began its involvement behind the scenes, because as it continued over the next months to issue instructions on how the Church should proceed, the Vatican is telling them to resist the law," says Kertzer. "They also specified to be sure that no one knows that these orders are coming from the Vatican or from the pope."
In 1945, the Finaly brothers were two of the estimated 1,200 French Jewish orphans in France alone in non-Jewish families or institutions. Across Europe, Kertzer believes, there were thousands more — secretly baptized and never reunited with their Jewish relatives. He writes in his Atlantic article that on Sept. 21, 1945, the secretary-general of the World Jewish Congress, Léon Kubowitzki, went to the Vatican to appeal for help in locating Jewish orphans. Pius replied, "We will give it all our attention."
Ultimately, the Finaly boys were reunited with their relatives in Israel where they now live in retirement. Following his discoveries in the archives, Kertzer contacted Robert Finaly, who described to him what it was like when he and Gérald were being shuffled around in hiding in various convents.
"They were made to fear Jews," Kertzer says. "They weren't told that their family was trying to reclaim them. And they were taught that Jews were damned by God and would live in eternal torment in hell when they died. They were scared stiff of Jews, of being Jewish."
The Vatican's mindest
The historian says his findings help fill many of the behind-the-scenes gaps at the Vatican during the war and its aftermath. But there is one question, says Kertzer, Pope Pius XII never seemed to ask:
"How could so many thousands and hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Germans and their allies take part in the mass murder of Jewish children and old people and so forth, still thinking they were good Catholics?"
Kertzer says his findings reveal that the horrors of the Holocaust did not temper the Vatican's anti-Semitic mindset.
That mindset was not repudiated until 20 years after the war when, with the Second Vatican Council, the Roman Catholic Church formally rejected the centuries-old Catholic doctrine that held Jews responsible for the death of Christ. That ushered in a new era of Catholic-Jewish dialogue — and ultimately the opening of the Pius XII archives.
And, Kertzer says there's still much more to be learned from the newly available trove of documents.


npr--2020-08-29--Group Whose NIH Grant For Virus Research Was Revoked Just Got A New Grant

Group Whose NIH Grant For Virus Research Was Revoked Just Got A New Grant The National Institutes of Health has awarded a grant worth $ 7.5 million over five years to EcoHealth Alliance , a U.S.-based nonprofit that hunts emerging viruses .
The award comes months after NIH revoked an earlier grant to EcoHealth , a move scientists widely decried as the politically motivated quashing of research vital to preventing the next coronavirus pandemic .
EcoHealth Alliance is one of 11 institutions and research teams receiving grants from NIH , announced this week , to establish the Centers for Research @ @ @ @ @ @ @ network will monitor pathogens that emerge in wildlife and study how and where they go on to infect humans .
The centers should also serve as an early-warning system against future pandemics , Dr. Anthony Fauci , director of the National Institutes of Allergies and Infectious Diseases , said in a statement Thursday .
`` The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic serves as a potent reminder of the devastation that can be wrought when a new virus infects humans for the first time , '' Fauci stated , adding , `` The knowledge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ preparedness for future outbreaks . ''
This multi-million-dollar support sends a far different message than what EcoHealth heard in April , when the NIH abruptly terminated an earlier grant to the group , saying NIH did not believe EcoHealth 's research aligned with `` agency priorities . ''
The termination stemmed from EcoHealth 's work with the Wuhan Institute of Virology , located in the Chinese city where the current pandemic began .
The years-long collaboration involved the collection of hundreds of coronavirus samples recovered from bats in China and research into how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
EcoHealth 's bat research in China was entirely funded through the $ 3.7 million NIH grant .
A small portion — about $ 76,000 per year — was used to pay the Wuhan lab for its on-the-ground work .
Since the termination of the grant , that research has been at a complete standstill , says Peter Daszak , president of EcoHealth Alliance .
`` I feel extremely frustrated that the most important work of our careers here at EcoHealth Alliance — now , we ca n't do that work , '' @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had identified fragments of genetic sequences for hundreds of wholly new bat coronaviruses , including some that were close relatives of SARS-COV-2 , the virus causing the current pandemic .
`` The next step in that research is to sequence the whole genome of those viruses and say , could they bind to human cells ?
Does this look like a virus that could potentially emerge ? ''
But now , he says , `` we ca n't do that work .
And I do n't think that work is going to happen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on us to fund it . ''
`` That 's the most critical work in the midst of an outbreak caused by exactly the same [ type of ] virus , '' Daszak says , adding , `` It 's a loss to the public .
It 's a loss to global health and it 's a loss to U.S. national security as well . ''
At the time that grant was revoked , conspiracy theories suggested the virus may have emerged from the Wuhan lab .
As NPR has reported , many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nearly impossible .
The grant was cancelled days after President Trump was asked at a White House press conference about the use of funds from the grant to pay the Wuhan lab .
The termination prompted outrage among the scientific community .
In May , 77 Nobel Prize-winning American scientists signed onto a letter denouncing the cancellation of the grant , saying the move set a `` dangerous precedent by interfering in the conduct of science '' and deprived `` the nation and the world of highly regarded science that could help control @ @ @ @ @ @ @ modern history and those that may arise in the future . ''
In July , NIH sent EcoHealth Alliance a letter saying that it would restore funding for the earlier grant if it met certain conditions .
Those conditions included obtaining a sample of the SARS-COV-2 virus that the Wuhan lab used to determine its genetic sequence and arranging for an independent team to examine the Wuhan lab and determine whether it had possession of the SARS-COV-2 virus prior to December 2019 , according to reporting by The Wall Street Journal .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the whereabouts of a scientist at the Wuhan lab whose photo was removed from its website , the paper reported .
The scientist has been the focus of internet conspiracy theories suggesting she was in fact `` patient zero '' for the coronavirus .
The Wuhan Institute of Virology has previously said that the scientist in question was a graduate student who had finished her master 's degree and moved on to other work .
Daszak confirmed NIH 's conditions for restoring the prior grant to NPR and called them `` preposterous .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a private detective , '' he says .
`` It 's not really my job to do that . ''
Daszak says he still hopes NIH will change its mind and restore the canceled grant for its work in China .
But for now , Daszak says he 's excited about the research that will be possible thanks to the new NIH grant for the creation of the Centers for Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases , or CREID .
The new grant will not be used for any research in China , he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the CREID network will focus on creating research and surveillance collaborations in different geographical regions .
EcoHealth Alliance 's work will target Southeast Asia , specifically Singapore , Thailand and Malaysia .
Daszak says the focus will be on pathogens emerging from bats , rodents and primates .
That will mean studying coronaviruses , of course , but also filoviruses , a family of viruses that includes Ebola , and paramyxoviruses , a group that includes the viruses that cause mumps , measles and Nipah , a highly lethal virus that inspired the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Alliance will also be working with rural hospitals , looking for people who come in with severe and novel respiratory diseases .
`` We 're going to work in remote parts of Malaysia and Thailand to get to the front line of where the next pandemic is going to start , '' he says .

Group Whose NIH Grant For Virus Research Was Revoked Just Got A New Grant
The National Institutes of Health has awarded a grant worth $7.5 million over five years to EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S.-based nonprofit that hunts emerging viruses. The award comes months after NIH revoked an earlier grant to EcoHealth, a move scientists widely decried as the politically motivated quashing of research vital to preventing the next coronavirus pandemic.
EcoHealth Alliance is one of 11 institutions and research teams receiving grants from NIH, announced this week, to establish the Centers for Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases. The global network will monitor pathogens that emerge in wildlife and study how and where they go on to infect humans.
The centers should also serve as an early-warning system against future pandemics, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, said in a statement Thursday.
"The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic serves as a potent reminder of the devastation that can be wrought when a new virus infects humans for the first time," Fauci stated, adding, "The knowledge gained through this research will increase our preparedness for future outbreaks."
This multi-million-dollar support sends a far different message than what EcoHealth heard in April, when the NIH abruptly terminated an earlier grant to the group, saying NIH did not believe EcoHealth's research aligned with "agency priorities."
The termination stemmed from EcoHealth's work with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, located in the Chinese city where the current pandemic began. The years-long collaboration involved the collection of hundreds of coronavirus samples recovered from bats in China and research into how they were spilling over into human populations.
EcoHealth's bat research in China was entirely funded through the $3.7 million NIH grant. A small portion — about $76,000 per year — was used to pay the Wuhan lab for its on-the-ground work.
Since the termination of the grant, that research has been at a complete standstill, says Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance. "I feel extremely frustrated that the most important work of our careers here at EcoHealth Alliance — now, we can't do that work," he says.
He says the project had identified fragments of genetic sequences for hundreds of wholly new bat coronaviruses, including some that were close relatives of SARS-COV-2, the virus causing the current pandemic. "The next step in that research is to sequence the whole genome of those viruses and say, could they bind to human cells? Does this look like a virus that could potentially emerge?"
But now, he says, "we can't do that work. And I don't think that work is going to happen in China, because they were relying on us to fund it."
"That's the most critical work in the midst of an outbreak caused by exactly the same [type of] virus," Daszak says, adding, "It's a loss to the public. It's a loss to global health and it's a loss to U.S. national security as well."
At the time that grant was revoked, conspiracy theories suggested the virus may have emerged from the Wuhan lab. As NPR has reported, many scientists who study viruses called that scenario nearly impossible. The grant was cancelled days after President Trump was asked at a White House press conference about the use of funds from the grant to pay the Wuhan lab.
The termination prompted outrage among the scientific community. In May, 77 Nobel Prize-winning American scientists signed onto a letter denouncing the cancellation of the grant, saying the move set a "dangerous precedent by interfering in the conduct of science" and deprived "the nation and the world of highly regarded science that could help control one of the greatest health crises in modern history and those that may arise in the future."
In July, NIH sent EcoHealth Alliance a letter saying that it would restore funding for the earlier grant if it met certain conditions. Those conditions included obtaining a sample of the SARS-COV-2 virus that the Wuhan lab used to determine its genetic sequence and arranging for an independent team to examine the Wuhan lab and determine whether it had possession of the SARS-COV-2 virus prior to December 2019, according to reporting by The Wall Street Journal.
The letter also demanded that EcoHealth figure out the whereabouts of a scientist at the Wuhan lab whose photo was removed from its website, the paper reported. The scientist has been the focus of internet conspiracy theories suggesting she was in fact "patient zero" for the coronavirus. The Wuhan Institute of Virology has previously said that the scientist in question was a graduate student who had finished her master's degree and moved on to other work.
Daszak confirmed NIH's conditions for restoring the prior grant to NPR and called them "preposterous."
"I'm not trained as a private detective," he says. "It's not really my job to do that."
Daszak says he still hopes NIH will change its mind and restore the canceled grant for its work in China.
But for now, Daszak says he's excited about the research that will be possible thanks to the new NIH grant for the creation of the Centers for Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases, or CREID. The new grant will not be used for any research in China, he says.
Each of the centers in the CREID network will focus on creating research and surveillance collaborations in different geographical regions. EcoHealth Alliance's work will target Southeast Asia, specifically Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. Daszak says the focus will be on pathogens emerging from bats, rodents and primates. That will mean studying coronaviruses, of course, but also filoviruses, a family of viruses that includes Ebola, and paramyxoviruses, a group that includes the viruses that cause mumps, measles and Nipah, a highly lethal virus that inspired the 2011 movie Contagion.
Daszak says EcoHealth Alliance will also be working with rural hospitals, looking for people who come in with severe and novel respiratory diseases. "We're going to work in remote parts of Malaysia and Thailand to get to the front line of where the next pandemic is going to start," he says.


npr--2020-08-29--Adapting To A Pandemic, GOP Confab Sets Tone For Trump Reelection Campaign

Adapting To A Pandemic , GOP Confab Sets Tone For Trump Reelection Campaign The 2020 Republican National Convention this week began and ended with two performances by the man who designed it all , President Donald J. Trump .
Most of the attention went , of course , to the final night 's event , when a live audience saw him `` profoundly accept '' his renomination in an hourlong speech delivered on the South Lawn of the White House .
Backed by a forest of American flags , the president looked out upon members of his family and staff @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of his party in Congress .
They sat side by side in close rows of chairs .
Few wore masks .
There was little sign of the pandemic that had cost the president the big show he had originally planned for Charlotte , N.C. , or in his backup venue in Jacksonville , Fla .
Unlike most of the speakers during the week , Trump did not ignore the disease that has killed 180,000 Americans or speak of it in the past tense .
But he cast it as less than central to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bump for his parade of triumphs : `` We are meeting this challenge , '' he said proudly , `` delivering lifesaving therapies and we will produce a vaccine before the end of the year or maybe even sooner . ''
Few experts have seen a realistic possibility of a vaccine that would be regarded as safe by year 's end , let alone sooner .
In recent weeks , the White House has barred TV appearances by such figures as Dr. Anthony Fauci , the nation 's longtime leading immunologist , who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Trump displayed a portrait of three presidencies – his own , his predecessor 's and the one he said Democratic nominee Joe Biden would create if elected .
Most of the attention focused on Trump 's own four years , which he sketched as a montage of success upon success .
He spoke of having conquered the vexing issues of taxes and trade , European allies and Middle East rivals , refugees and immigrants and most notably – the pandemic itself .
The White House had promised a speech that would be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ virus , the consequent recession or the widespread racial unrest following multiple killings of Black people by police .
The speech was defiant , to be sure , but the inspirational elements were less salient than Trump 's relentless attack on his Democratic foe .
`` Joe Biden is not a savior of America 's soul , '' the president said .
`` He is the destroyer of America 's jobs , and if given the chance , he will be the destroyer of America 's greatness . ''
Overall , the speech @ @ @ @ @ @ @ acceptance speech by an angry outsider running for president four years ago at the Republican convention in Cleveland .
That night , candidate Trump railed against the work of Democrats and Washington insiders , whom he would displace .
`` Only I can fix it , '' he said then .
And four years later , the message was much the same , although he had been working for most of that time inside the building that served as the backdrop for his speech on Thursday .
Trump 's case for himself may @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when he made an unscheduled appearance in Charlotte .
Here , instead of the 50,000 attendees originally anticipated , a remnant of 336 delegates had done the official business of renominating the incumbent .
The unopposed incumbent had won every state , and in fact every vote from every state .
Many states had canceled their primaries or caucuses on the Republican side .
As he followed Vice President Pence onstage in Charlotte , Trump was greeted with chants of `` four more years . ''
He replied : `` If you want @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : 'Twelve more years . '
`` The president did not explain how a four-term presidency might happen , given the constitutional limit of two terms set by the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution halfway through the 20th century .
But the president did offer an hour 's worth of free-form , wide-ranging ruminations on everything from the state of the national economy to trade deals with China and South Korea and the kinds of people most likely to die from COVID-19 .
( `` It affects older people , the elderly , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ diabetes , other problems . ''
) By Friday , two attendees at the Charlotte event and two support staff had tested positive for the virus .
But in that hour in Charlotte , the president was loose and very much among friends .
His language veered beyond informal to crude at times , but no one in the hall seemed to mind .
The shouts of `` we love you '' and `` thank you , Mr. President '' were recurrent , persistent and well-amplified to be clearly audible on TV .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ seen , but clips were great fodder for cable TV .
And the prime-time TV audience began tuning in that same night , when Trump was not featured but did make a cameo appearance .
The same happened on the second and third nights , posing the president for pictures with Melania , his wife , or Pence , his vice president , just as the TV anchors were signing off .
This Republican gathering was sui generis , a creature unto itself , unlike any preceding convention any major party held since @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Democrats the week before had met almost entirely online , but the Republicans managed to perform before live audiences that were small but vocal and highly enthusiastic .
The overnight reviews split along partisan lines as sharply , and predictably , as the votes on impeachment in Congress last winter .
It is hard to remember now that President Trump is the only president ever to face the voters after being impeached ( or forced from office under threat of impeachment ) .
But if that was any inhibition for him , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not in his prepared remarks , but he again asserted in his concluding speech that `` Obama and Biden spied on me and got caught '' – an allusion to his explanation for the investigation of his ties to Russian interference in the 2016 election .
Multiple investigations have yet to find evidence to prove this accusation .
Trump did not mention his actual impeachment , but several other speakers from his retinue did during the week .
It was noted that the Democrats , who impeached Trump in the House and pressed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Senate , did not mention impeachment in their prime-time speeches the previous week .
But sadly for the president , impeachment was only the first dire challenge to face in his reelection year .
And it has proven more difficult to elide the facts and consequences of the others .
Despite the president 's assertions , the crisis over the COVID-19 pandemic rages on , with more than 180,000 dead and still nearly a thousand dying each day .
The U.S. also adds thousands of new infections each day ( leading the world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , while the administration responds by trying to limit the number of people getting tested and promoting various therapies that have not been shown to be helpful .
The president has repeatedly blamed the testing for the high numbers of new cases .
He and others in his orbit have suggested only people showing symptoms of the disease should be tested at all .
Still , flashing the bravado that characterized his business career , Trump has insisted his handling of the virus has been not only defensible but exemplary .
What has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the dislocation the pandemic has caused in the economy , which crashed in March .
The gross domestic product for the second quarter fell by nearly a third ( on an annualized basis ) , and unemployment soared to nearly 15 % .
Both measures were the worst since the Great Depression .
Aggrieved by the shutdown of schools and workplaces , Trump began saying , `` The cure can not be worse than the disease . ''
Today , Trump can point to some bright spots .
The stock market has rebounded @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reopening of many businesses has allowed many laid-off workers to return to work .
But the positive jobs trend at mid-summer has since reversed itself , and a million or more people are again filing for unemployment compensation each week .
At the scaled-down RNC this week , all talk of the economy was spun to highlight the happier times of last winter and look forward to a snapback next winter .
As he usually does , Trump took credit for the `` strongest economy in history '' and a record number of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , while often repeated , are shaky .
As was noted the previous week by the Democrats , there were more jobs created in the U.S. in the last three years under Obama than in the first three under Trump .
More than a million more .
But whatever the validity of of Trump 's claims about the past , current reality for millions of the unemployed is dire .
With the virus still far from controlled , the economic climb could get steeper as well .
Given all the strange and strained @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that this convention seemed so different from all its historic analogs .
But the starkest contrast was with those past conventions staged by incumbent presidents seeing a second term — especially those in the era of TV coverage .
Looking just at GOP conventions renominating incumbents , the record is impressive .
Four of the five incumbents in this era went on to win a second term ( George W. Bush , Ronald Reagan , Richard Nixon and Dwight Eisenhower ) .
The latter three won reelection in landslides : Ike carried 41 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ each carried 49 of 50 .
Those campaigns featured supremely confident conventions with little or no controversy touching the candidate ( other than health concerns following Eisenhower 's 1955 heart attack ) .
George W. Bush was renominated in 2004 in New York City to celebrate that city 's comeback from the Sept. 11 attacks of 2001 .
The stars of that show were the city 's former mayor Rudy Giuliani ( also on the program Thursday night , although with far less starpower impact ) and the movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who has since disappeared from Republican politics .
The one renominating GOP convention in these five that presaged a losing November was the 1992 event on behalf of President George H.W .
Bush in his hometown of Houston .
And a review of that episode turns up some similarities in rhetoric to what we heard this week .
Rich Bond , the party 's national chairman , told the convention hall `` We are America , they [ the Democrats ] are not America . ''
This week , Pence told the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is on the ballot . ''
It has often been said that the elder Bush 's show fell flat for two reasons .
First , it failed to address the big negative story hanging over the country – lagging recovery from a recession that had lingered in some swing states .
But the other problem for the incumbent nominee was one Trump did not have : speakers whose performance overshadowed the nominee 's own .
One was Reagan , then just four years out of office and still immensely popular .
In the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Reagan reminded the audience he had chosen Bush as his vice president ; but many in the audience were reminded how much they preferred Reagan .
A larger problem was the indelible opening night speech by Patrick Buchanan , a former journalist and speechwriter both for Reagan and the previous Republican president Richard Nixon .
Buchanan had run against Bush , his party 's incumbent president , in the GOP primaries that year .
While he had just 18 delegates , the Bush team wanted his help with the party 's more populist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ later run for president as a third-party candidate on the campaign slogan `` America First . ''
) Buchanan 's outsider campaign had been about reducing immigration and resisting social changes such as abortion rights , gay rights , women in combat units and multicultural education .
In Houston , he said these were `` not the kind of change America wants and not the kind of change we can abide in a nation we still call God 's country . ''
He spoke of `` a cultural war '' in America and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ featured `` 20,000 radicals and liberals dressed up as moderates and centrists . ''
Buchanan closed by paying tribute to National Guard troops sent to Los Angeles that summer to quell street riots after a jury acquitted police officers videotaped beating Rodney King , a black man .
Buchanan said the soldiers , with bayonets fixed , were `` taking back America , block by block . ''
The speech lit up the Astrodome , unleashing a roar from the crowd that seemed to reverberate throughout the week and beyond .
It would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Bush 's `` kinder , gentler '' conservatism .
But it overshadowed the incumbent president 's own speech at week 's end , which lacked the force of his first acceptance speech four years earlier .
All conventions have their memorable moments , positive or otherwise , and their connection to either victory or defeat will always be subject to debate .
This year 's versions , one online and one largely a hybrid , were both scaled way back from historic expectations .
Their actual effect on the campaign 's outcome @ @ @ @ @ @ @ marginal .
In 2024 , we may be eager to hold traditional conventions again , or we may have come to regard them as an anachronism .
Much may depend on who is in the White House at that time and on how much of a contribution that person believes the 2020 convention made to the November outcome .

Adapting To A Pandemic, GOP Confab Sets Tone For Trump Reelection Campaign
Enlarge this image toggle caption Evan Vucci/AP Evan Vucci/AP
The 2020 Republican National Convention this week began and ended with two performances by the man who designed it all, President Donald J. Trump.
Most of the attention went, of course, to the final night's event, when a live audience saw him "profoundly accept" his renomination in an hourlong speech delivered on the South Lawn of the White House. Backed by a forest of American flags, the president looked out upon members of his family and staff, members of his Cabinet and members of his party in Congress.
They sat side by side in close rows of chairs. Few wore masks. There was little sign of the pandemic that had cost the president the big show he had originally planned for Charlotte, N.C., or in his backup venue in Jacksonville, Fla.
Unlike most of the speakers during the week, Trump did not ignore the disease that has killed 180,000 Americans or speak of it in the past tense. But he cast it as less than central to the moment, a kind of speed bump for his parade of triumphs: "We are meeting this challenge," he said proudly, "delivering lifesaving therapies and we will produce a vaccine before the end of the year or maybe even sooner."
Few experts have seen a realistic possibility of a vaccine that would be regarded as safe by year's end, let alone sooner. In recent weeks, the White House has barred TV appearances by such figures as Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's longtime leading immunologist, who has contradicted the president without criticizing him.
Trump displayed a portrait of three presidencies – his own, his predecessor's and the one he said Democratic nominee Joe Biden would create if elected. Most of the attention focused on Trump's own four years, which he sketched as a montage of success upon success. He spoke of having conquered the vexing issues of taxes and trade, European allies and Middle East rivals, refugees and immigrants and most notably – the pandemic itself.
Uplifting or unloading?
The White House had promised a speech that would be "uplifting," unbowed by the virus, the consequent recession or the widespread racial unrest following multiple killings of Black people by police. The speech was defiant, to be sure, but the inspirational elements were less salient than Trump's relentless attack on his Democratic foe.
"Joe Biden is not a savior of America's soul," the president said. "He is the destroyer of America's jobs, and if given the chance, he will be the destroyer of America's greatness."
Overall, the speech sounded a great deal like an earlier acceptance speech by an angry outsider running for president four years ago at the Republican convention in Cleveland. That night, candidate Trump railed against the work of Democrats and Washington insiders, whom he would displace.
"Only I can fix it," he said then. And four years later, the message was much the same, although he had been working for most of that time inside the building that served as the backdrop for his speech on Thursday.
(Throughout the week, government watchdogs and other critics of the administration noted the wanton disregard being shown for previous norms and regulations regarding the use of government officials or taxpayer property to promote a campaign for office. The Hatch Act, an 81-year-old law, prohibits such uses but has not been used to send anyone to jail. When asked about this during the week, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said: "No one outside of the Beltway really cares.")
Trump's case for himself may have been even sharper on Monday, when he made an unscheduled appearance in Charlotte. Here, instead of the 50,000 attendees originally anticipated, a remnant of 336 delegates had done the official business of renominating the incumbent. The unopposed incumbent had won every state, and in fact every vote from every state. Many states had canceled their primaries or caucuses on the Republican side.
As he followed Vice President Pence onstage in Charlotte, Trump was greeted with chants of "four more years." He replied: "If you want to really drive them crazy you say: 'Twelve more years.' "
The president did not explain how a four-term presidency might happen, given the constitutional limit of two terms set by the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution halfway through the 20th century.
But the president did offer an hour's worth of free-form, wide-ranging ruminations on everything from the state of the national economy to trade deals with China and South Korea and the kinds of people most likely to die from COVID-19. ("It affects older people, the elderly, people with problems, with heart, diabetes, other problems.") By Friday, two attendees at the Charlotte event and two support staff had tested positive for the virus.
But in that hour in Charlotte, the president was loose and very much among friends. His language veered beyond informal to crude at times, but no one in the hall seemed to mind. The shouts of "we love you" and "thank you, Mr. President" were recurrent, persistent and well-amplified to be clearly audible on TV.
Monday's midday walk-on was not widely seen, but clips were great fodder for cable TV. And the prime-time TV audience began tuning in that same night, when Trump was not featured but did make a cameo appearance. The same happened on the second and third nights, posing the president for pictures with Melania, his wife, or Pence, his vice president, just as the TV anchors were signing off.
A creature unto itself
This Republican gathering was sui generis, a creature unto itself, unlike any preceding convention any major party held since such gatherings began in the 1830s. The Democrats the week before had met almost entirely online, but the Republicans managed to perform before live audiences that were small but vocal and highly enthusiastic.
The overnight reviews split along partisan lines as sharply, and predictably, as the votes on impeachment in Congress last winter. It is hard to remember now that President Trump is the only president ever to face the voters after being impeached (or forced from office under threat of impeachment).
But if that was any inhibition for him, it did not show. It was not in his prepared remarks, but he again asserted in his concluding speech that "Obama and Biden spied on me and got caught" – an allusion to his explanation for the investigation of his ties to Russian interference in the 2016 election. Multiple investigations have yet to find evidence to prove this accusation.
Trump did not mention his actual impeachment, but several other speakers from his retinue did during the week. It was noted that the Democrats, who impeached Trump in the House and pressed for his removal from office in the Senate, did not mention impeachment in their prime-time speeches the previous week.
But sadly for the president, impeachment was only the first dire challenge to face in his reelection year. And it has proven more difficult to elide the facts and consequences of the others.
Despite the president's assertions, the crisis over the COVID-19 pandemic rages on, with more than 180,000 dead and still nearly a thousand dying each day. The U.S. also adds thousands of new infections each day (leading the world with 5.9 million as of Saturday), while the administration responds by trying to limit the number of people getting tested and promoting various therapies that have not been shown to be helpful.
The president has repeatedly blamed the testing for the high numbers of new cases. He and others in his orbit have suggested only people showing symptoms of the disease should be tested at all. Still, flashing the bravado that characterized his business career, Trump has insisted his handling of the virus has been not only defensible but exemplary.
Recession the larger threat?
What has seemed to concern the president more is the dislocation the pandemic has caused in the economy, which crashed in March. The gross domestic product for the second quarter fell by nearly a third (on an annualized basis), and unemployment soared to nearly 15%. Both measures were the worst since the Great Depression. Aggrieved by the shutdown of schools and workplaces, Trump began saying, "The cure cannot be worse than the disease."
Today, Trump can point to some bright spots. The stock market has rebounded to regain its previous highs. Partial reopening of many businesses has allowed many laid-off workers to return to work. But the positive jobs trend at mid-summer has since reversed itself, and a million or more people are again filing for unemployment compensation each week.
At the scaled-down RNC this week, all talk of the economy was spun to highlight the happier times of last winter and look forward to a snapback next winter. As he usually does, Trump took credit for the "strongest economy in history" and a record number of people with jobs. But both claims, while often repeated, are shaky. As was noted the previous week by the Democrats, there were more jobs created in the U.S. in the last three years under Obama than in the first three under Trump. More than a million more.
But whatever the validity of of Trump's claims about the past, current reality for millions of the unemployed is dire. With the virus still far from controlled, the economic climb could get steeper as well.
Given all the strange and strained circumstances, no one can be surprised that this convention seemed so different from all its historic analogs. But the starkest contrast was with those past conventions staged by incumbent presidents seeing a second term — especially those in the era of TV coverage.
Looking just at GOP conventions renominating incumbents, the record is impressive. Four of the five incumbents in this era went on to win a second term (George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon and Dwight Eisenhower). The latter three won reelection in landslides: Ike carried 41 of 48 states, Nixon and Reagan each carried 49 of 50.
Those campaigns featured supremely confident conventions with little or no controversy touching the candidate (other than health concerns following Eisenhower's 1955 heart attack).
George W. Bush was renominated in 2004 in New York City to celebrate that city's comeback from the Sept. 11 attacks of 2001. The stars of that show were the city's former mayor Rudy Giuliani (also on the program Thursday night, although with far less starpower impact) and the movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger, then a newly elected governor of California, who has since disappeared from Republican politics.
The one renominating GOP convention in these five that presaged a losing November was the 1992 event on behalf of President George H.W. Bush in his hometown of Houston. And a review of that episode turns up some similarities in rhetoric to what we heard this week. Rich Bond, the party's national chairman, told the convention hall "We are America, they [the Democrats] are not America." This week, Pence told the crowd at Fort McHenry that "America is on the ballot."
It has often been said that the elder Bush's show fell flat for two reasons. First, it failed to address the big negative story hanging over the country – lagging recovery from a recession that had lingered in some swing states. But the other problem for the incumbent nominee was one Trump did not have: speakers whose performance overshadowed the nominee's own. One was Reagan, then just four years out of office and still immensely popular. In the last major address of his career, Reagan reminded the audience he had chosen Bush as his vice president; but many in the audience were reminded how much they preferred Reagan.
A speech sets campaign tone
A larger problem was the indelible opening night speech by Patrick Buchanan, a former journalist and speechwriter both for Reagan and the previous Republican president Richard Nixon. Buchanan had run against Bush, his party's incumbent president, in the GOP primaries that year. While he had just 18 delegates, the Bush team wanted his help with the party's more populist, nationalist wing. (Buchanan would later run for president as a third-party candidate on the campaign slogan "America First.")
Buchanan's outsider campaign had been about reducing immigration and resisting social changes such as abortion rights, gay rights, women in combat units and multicultural education. In Houston, he said these were "not the kind of change America wants and not the kind of change we can abide in a nation we still call God's country." He spoke of "a cultural war" in America and said that summer's Democratic Convention had featured "20,000 radicals and liberals dressed up as moderates and centrists."
Buchanan closed by paying tribute to National Guard troops sent to Los Angeles that summer to quell street riots after a jury acquitted police officers videotaped beating Rodney King, a black man. Buchanan said the soldiers, with bayonets fixed, were "taking back America, block by block."
The speech lit up the Astrodome, unleashing a roar from the crowd that seemed to reverberate throughout the week and beyond. It would be widely criticized as incendiary and contradictory of Bush's "kinder, gentler" conservatism. But it overshadowed the incumbent president's own speech at week's end, which lacked the force of his first acceptance speech four years earlier.
All conventions have their memorable moments, positive or otherwise, and their connection to either victory or defeat will always be subject to debate. This year's versions, one online and one largely a hybrid, were both scaled way back from historic expectations. Their actual effect on the campaign's outcome may be similarly reduced, perhaps even marginal.
In 2024, we may be eager to hold traditional conventions again, or we may have come to regard them as an anachronism. Much may depend on who is in the White House at that time and on how much of a contribution that person believes the 2020 convention made to the November outcome.


npr--2020-08-30--Coffee Keeps Its Mojo: Producers Overcome Pandemic Obstacles

Coffee lovers , here 's something to be grateful about .
Unlike paper towels , disinfectant or yeast , coffee has never been hard to find during the pandemic .
It has remained widely available on supermarket shelves even though COVID-19 has been particularly bad in some of the world 's largest coffee growing nations .
Brazil , which has recorded more cases than any nation other than the United States , is the world 's top producer of coffee .
India , Mexico and Colombia all rank in the top ten globally for both COVID cases and coffee production @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Uganda have found themselves cut off by border closures and lockdowns .
`` It 's natural to think that the harvesting of the coffee crops may be disrupted or perhaps badly disrupted , '' says Steven Hurst , a coffee trader based in London .
`` But quite honestly and quite frankly , we 've seen relatively little , if any , evidence of that . ''
Hurst 's company Mercanta , The Coffee Hunters , buys coffee from all over the world .
He says the origin of the beans is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 's selling .
It 's not just Arabica beans , it 's shade-grown Arabica from Peru .
Or it 's coffee from a small farmer collective in Uganda .
`` Built in to every coffee is a story behind it , '' he says .
`` Where the coffees come from is n't simply a GPS coordinate on a map .
Where the coffees come from is absolutely integral to the to the coffee itself . ''
And during this pandemic , much of the world 's beans are coming from either coronavirus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , or nations facing near total lockdowns such as Rwanda .
Gilbert Gatali runs a small coffee exporting business out of Rwanda called Roots Origin focusing on high-quality , specialty beans .
`` The lockdown in the whole country meant cars were n't moving .
Very few people were moving .
It was very different , '' Gatali says .
The government order for people to stay home came in March in the middle of Rwanda 's coffee bean harvest .
Agricultural activities were allowed to continue but Gatali had to get special @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the coffee growing districts .
In Rwanda the first step in processing raw coffee beans occurs at what are called `` washing stations '' .
The washing stations , often in the center of a village , are a series of long wooden tables set up outside for sorting and drying the beans .
At the height of the harvest , Gatali says these hubs are bustling with activity .
There are `` farmers coming in with sacks of coffee on their head , '' Gatali says .
`` Others are coming @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a bike . ''
Initially Gatali was very worried that the quality of the harvest could suffer due to the lockdown .
Farmers might rush to harvest their crops .
There 'd be less oversight at the washing stations .
`` At my washing stations we are probably hiring a little over 70 people , '' Gatali says .
`` Ninety nine percent of them are women who are standing next to each other hand sorting coffees . ''
But just like at meat packing plants and auto factories in the U.S. , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beans have to be farther apart .
Instead of 20 women at each table , Gatali now has only six or seven .
This slows down processing .
There have been other delays , too .
Warehouses in Kigali have fewer workers .
Trucks hauling sacks of beans to ports on the Indian Ocean had to swap drivers at the border because Rwanda was n't allowing truckers from Tanzania to enter .
In the midst of all this , roasting companies in North America and Europe were canceling orders as espresso machines sat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Colleen Anunu who runs Gim me !
Coffee out of Ithaca , New York says the pandemic has tip over her coffee roasting and retail business .
`` We used to have pretty good a pretty good forecasting mechanism , '' she says for ordering beans from producers including Gatali in Rwanda .
But not now .
`` We have no idea how the type of volumes that we 're going to need .
So that 's a big challenge for our suppliers . ''
Pre-pandemic Gim me !
Coffee had 7 coffee @ @ @ @ @ @ @ six of them and laying off dozens of employees , mostly baristas .
`` Overall , since the end of March , our total sales have been down 80 percent in retail , '' Anunu says .
The collapse of latte sales at independent coffee shops has been a blow to producers like Gatali at Roots Origin in Rwanda .
Gatali and many other small companies had built their businesses around supplying high-quality , specialty beans to roasters at fair-trade prices .
`` So it 's really hard to plan , '' Gatali @ @ @ @ @ @ @ consumption habits as cafes shutdown .
`` It 's really hard to plan for next year .
It 's really hard to plan for next month . ''
Yet despite the uncertainty and turmoil , Gatali got his beans harvested , sorted and packed for export .
Despite on of the worst COVID outbreaks in the world Brazil has n't had much difficulty with labor shortages because much of the coffee harvest is done by machines .
`` Because of the mechanical harvesting , picking is not as much of an issue , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trader with Atlas Coffee Importers in Seattle .
`` You can run a very large farm ( in Brazil ) with much less staff than you would in other parts of Central America and South America . ''
Amidst all the pandemic related challenges , most coffee producers still managed to keep operating .
Brazil even appears to be on track to harvest a record crop in 2020 .
COVID-19 has upended many industries around the world .
It 's caused some analysts to declare globalization `` over '' .
But the coffee @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of this crisis some global supply chains remain incredibly resilient .

Coffee Keeps Its Mojo: Producers Overcome Pandemic Obstacles
Enlarge this image toggle caption Mauro Pimentel/AFP via Getty Images Mauro Pimentel/AFP via Getty Images
Coffee lovers, here's something to be grateful about. Unlike paper towels, disinfectant or yeast, coffee has never been hard to find during the pandemic.
It has remained widely available on supermarket shelves even though COVID-19 has been particularly bad in some of the world's largest coffee growing nations. Brazil, which has recorded more cases than any nation other than the United States, is the world's top producer of coffee. India, Mexico and Colombia all rank in the top ten globally for both COVID cases and coffee production. Other major coffee exporters including Peru and Uganda have found themselves cut off by border closures and lockdowns.
"It's natural to think that the harvesting of the coffee crops may be disrupted or perhaps badly disrupted," says Steven Hurst, a coffee trader based in London. "But quite honestly and quite frankly, we've seen relatively little, if any, evidence of that."
Hurst's company Mercanta, The Coffee Hunters, buys coffee from all over the world. He says the origin of the beans is a central part of the product he's selling. It's not just Arabica beans, it's shade-grown Arabica from Peru. Or it's coffee from a small farmer collective in Uganda.
"Built in to every coffee is a story behind it," he says. "Where the coffees come from isn't simply a GPS coordinate on a map. Where the coffees come from is absolutely integral to the to the coffee itself."
And during this pandemic, much of the world's beans are coming from either coronavirus hotspots, such as Brazil and India, or nations facing near total lockdowns such as Rwanda.
Gilbert Gatali runs a small coffee exporting business out of Rwanda called Roots Origin focusing on high-quality, specialty beans.
"The lockdown in the whole country meant cars weren't moving. Very few people were moving. It was very different," Gatali says.
The government order for people to stay home came in March in the middle of Rwanda's coffee bean harvest. Agricultural activities were allowed to continue but Gatali had to get special permission to drive from the capital out to the coffee growing districts.
In Rwanda the first step in processing raw coffee beans occurs at what are called "washing stations". The washing stations, often in the center of a village, are a series of long wooden tables set up outside for sorting and drying the beans.
At the height of the harvest, Gatali says these hubs are bustling with activity. There are "farmers coming in with sacks of coffee on their head," Gatali says. "Others are coming in with small bags, others on a bike."
Initially Gatali was very worried that the quality of the harvest could suffer due to the lockdown. Farmers might rush to harvest their crops. There'd be less oversight at the washing stations.
"At my washing stations we are probably hiring a little over 70 people," Gatali says. "Ninety nine percent of them are women who are standing next to each other hand sorting coffees."
But just like at meat packing plants and auto factories in the U.S., social distancing now means Rwandans sorting coffee beans have to be farther apart.
Instead of 20 women at each table, Gatali now has only six or seven. This slows down processing. There have been other delays, too. Warehouses in Kigali have fewer workers. Trucks hauling sacks of beans to ports on the Indian Ocean had to swap drivers at the border because Rwanda wasn't allowing truckers from Tanzania to enter.
In the midst of all this, roasting companies in North America and Europe were canceling orders as espresso machines sat cold and coffee bars remained shut.
Colleen Anunu who runs Gimme! Coffee out of Ithaca, New York says the pandemic has tip over her coffee roasting and retail business.
"We used to have pretty good a pretty good forecasting mechanism," she says for ordering beans from producers including Gatali in Rwanda. But not now. "We have no idea how the type of volumes that we're going to need. So that's a big challenge for our suppliers."
Pre-pandemic Gimme! Coffee had 7 coffee shops. They ended up closing down six of them and laying off dozens of employees, mostly baristas.
"Overall, since the end of March, our total sales have been down 80 percent in retail," Anunu says.
The collapse of latte sales at independent coffee shops has been a blow to producers like Gatali at Roots Origin in Rwanda. Gatali and many other small companies had built their businesses around supplying high-quality, specialty beans to roasters at fair-trade prices.
"So it's really hard to plan," Gatali says of the sudden upheaval in coffee consumption habits as cafes shutdown. "It's really hard to plan for next year. It's really hard to plan for next month."
Yet despite the uncertainty and turmoil, Gatali got his beans harvested, sorted and packed for export.
Despite on of the worst COVID outbreaks in the world Brazil hasn't had much difficulty with labor shortages because much of the coffee harvest is done by machines. "Because of the mechanical harvesting, picking is not as much of an issue," says Chris Davidson, a senior trader with Atlas Coffee Importers in Seattle. "You can run a very large farm (in Brazil) with much less staff than you would in other parts of Central America and South America."
Amidst all the pandemic related challenges, most coffee producers still managed to keep operating. Brazil even appears to be on track to harvest a record crop in 2020.
COVID-19 has upended many industries around the world. It's caused some analysts to declare globalization "over". But the coffee trade shows that even in the face of this crisis some global supply chains remain incredibly resilient.


npr--2020-08-30--A Father's Fight Paved Way For DOJ's Open Investigation Into Kenosha Shooting

A Father 's Fight Paved Way For DOJ 's Open Investigation Into Kenosha Shooting The Wisconsin Department of Justice is overseeing the investigation into the police shooting of Jacob Blake , a Black man who was left paralyzed after he was shot seven times in front of his three kids by a police officer in Kenosha , Wis. Until recently , it was common practice that any time an officer fired a gun , the police department conducted the investigation .
In 2014 , Wisconsin became the first state to end that process – one that has led to accusations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whose own son was killed by Kenosha police , helped lead a decade-long fight to for that change .
In 2004 , Michael Bell Jr. , a white 21-year-old , pulled up to his home in Kenosha after a night of drinking .
As NPR previously reported based on a police report , a police officer followed Bell Jr. after noting his speed and pulled up behind his car at the home shortly before Bell Jr. exited his vehicle .
The police officer tried to arrest him .
Bell Jr. ignored the officer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ His mom and sister then saw the officer shoot Bell in the head .
After a two-day investigation , the Kenosha Police Department ruled the shooting as justified .
The swiftness of the investigation stunned Bell 's father , a retired lieutenant colonel with the Air Force who has experience with accident investigations .
`` I knew in my own military training and military career that typically accident and safety investigations take far longer to conduct than that , '' Michael Bell said .
In response , Bell filed a civil lawsuit against @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2010 , they reached a settlement with the Bell family , but Bell said he refused to sign a confidentiality agreement .
He did n't want this to be silenced ; he wanted reform .
Using some of the settlement money , Bell used Milwaukee 's available billboards as part of a campaign to blast messages like , `` When Police Kill , Should They Judge Themselves ? ''
`` After we created enough ruckus , the unions ended up sitting down with us and talking with us , '' Bell told NPR @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kaul is overseeing the FBI-led probe into the shooting of Jacob Blake .
His office has come under fire for releasing limited details about the shooting .
`` I absolutely understand why people are skeptical , '' Kaul told NPR .
`` We have a history of systemic racism , and our criminal justice system is part of that .
What I can tell you is that I am personally committed to making sure that this investigation is conducted vigorously and that we 're pursuing justice and following the facts where they lead @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to get Kaul 's attention in the aftermath of his son 's death , is n't reassured by the state attorney general 's promises .
`` I brought extremely credible evidence to Kaul and he would n't give us the time of day .
So if he 's doing an about-face on this , I am bothered by that , '' said Bell .
Still , Bell hopes that his work to get Wisconsin the protection of outside investigations into police shootings will pay off in the form of a just outcome for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ everybody to know that there are a lot of parallels between Jacob Blake and my own son , '' Bell said .
`` But we did not have the benefit of having an outside investigation conducted .
And after fighting so hard for that law , Jacob Blake 's family has that benefit that we never had . ''
NPR 's Sophia Boyd and Martha Ann Overland produced and edited the audio version of this story .

A Father's Fight Paved Way For Independent Investigation Into Kenosha Shooting
Enlarge this image toggle caption STEPHEN MATUREN/AFP via Getty Images STEPHEN MATUREN/AFP via Getty Images
The Wisconsin Department of Justice is overseeing the investigation into the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man who was left paralyzed after he was shot seven times in front of his three kids by a police officer in Kenosha, Wis.
Until recently, it was common practice that any time an officer fired a gun, the police department conducted the investigation. In 2014, Wisconsin became the first state to end that process – one that has led to accusations of conflicts of interest and police cover-ups.
Michael Bell, whose own son was killed by Kenosha police, helped lead a decade-long fight for that change.
In 2004, Michael Bell Jr., a white 21-year-old, pulled up to his home in Kenosha after a night of drinking. As NPR previously reported, a police report showed that a Kenosha officer followed Bell Jr. after observing his driving and pulled up behind his car at the home shortly before Bell Jr. exited his vehicle. Police tried to arrest him. Bell Jr. ignored them, which lead to a tussle. His mom and sister then saw an officer shoot Bell in the head.
After an investigation that lasted just two calendar days, according to Bell , the Kenosha Police Department ruled the shooting justified. The swiftness of the investigation stunned Bell, a retired lieutenant colonel with the Air Force who has experience with accident investigations.
"I knew in my own military training and military career that typically accident and safety investigations take far longer to conduct than that," Bell said in an interview with NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday.
In response, Bell filed a civil lawsuit against the department for wrongful death. In 2010, they reached a settlement with the Bell family, but Bell said he refused to sign a confidentiality agreement. He didn't want to be silenced; he wanted reform.
Using some of the settlement money, Bell used Milwaukee's available billboards as part of a campaign to blast messages like, "When Police Kill, Should They Judge Themselves?"
"After we created enough ruckus, the unions ended up sitting down with us and talking with us," Bell told NPR in 2014.
The law that came out of that campaign made Wisconsin, beginning in 2014, the first state in the nation to mandate, on the legislative level, that if an officer was involved in a loss of life, outside investigators must be the ones to investigate that shooting.
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul is overseeing the investigation into the shooting of Jacob Blake. His office has come under fire for releasing limited details about the shooting.
"I absolutely understand why people are skeptical," Kaul told NPR. "We have a history of systemic racism, and our criminal justice system is part of that. What I can tell you is that I am personally committed to making sure that this investigation is conducted vigorously and that we're pursuing justice and following the facts where they lead."
Bell, who recalled trying to get Kaul's attention in the aftermath of his son's death, isn't reassured by the state attorney general's promises.
"I brought extremely credible evidence to Josh Kaul and he wouldn't give us the time of day. So if he's doing an about-face on this, I am bothered by that," said Bell.
Still, Bell hopes that his work to get Wisconsin the protection of outside investigations into police shootings will pay off in the form of a just outcome for Blake's family.
"I want everybody to know that there are a lot of parallels between Jacob Blake and my own son," Bell said. "But we did not have the benefit of having an outside investigation conducted. And after fighting so hard for that law, Jacob Blake's family has that benefit that we never had."
NPR's Sophia Boyd and Martha Ann Overland produced and edited the audio version of this story.


npr--2020-08-30--Fact Check: Trump And Biden's Records On Criminal Justice

For four nights , speakers at the Republican National Convention pilloried Democrat Joe Biden over his alleged weakness on crime and painted a dystopian future if he were to be elected in November .
Biden and Democrats were `` completely silent about the rioters and criminals spreading mayhem in Democrat-run cities , '' during their convention , Trump charged Thursday .
The previous evening , Vice President Pence warned , `` The hard truth is you will not be safe in Joe Biden 's America . ''
The speeches came as residents of Kenosha , Wis. , were reeling from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a 29-year-old Black man , and the resulting protests — during which two people were fatally shot .
The unrest follows turmoil in other cities after police killed George Floyd , also a Black man , in Minneapolis in May .
Pence claimed that Biden would `` double down in the very policies that are leading to violence in American cites , '' to which Biden responded with a reminder that `` right now ... we 're in Donald Trump 's America . ''
Statistics show that some crime has been increasing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democrats and Republicans .
According to figures complied by data analyst and consultant Jeff Asher , the murder rate has increased by 26 % through July compared to a year ago .
Other violent crimes are up slightly , while property crimes are down by 7.7 % .
This is a reversal of longer term trends , in which violent crimes have been generally declining since the '90s .
In an email , Asher says determining the cause for the increase this year is complicated .
`` We barely have the data to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , much less to be able to properly evaluate and diagnose its cause , '' he says .
But the `` intense stresses being placed on numerous aspects of society by the pandemic is as persuasive as any . ''
The Trump administration announced this summer it was sending federal resources to cities , including additional FBI agents , along with U.S .
Marshals and agents from the DEA and the Bureau of Alcohol , Tobacco and Firearms to — in the Justice Department 's words — `` fight the sudden surge of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who promised in his 2016 acceptance speech that `` the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon , and I mean very soon , come to an end '' has a spotty record when it comes to criminal justice reform .
His signature achievement on the issue , the widely touted First Step Act signed in 2018 and passed with bipartisan support in Congress , instituted sentencing reforms , including reducing harsh penalties for crack cocaine possession .
And on Friday , Trump pardoned Alice Johnson , a criminal justice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the Republican National Convention this week , and whose cause had been espoused by Kim Kardashian West .
But some parts of the law have fallen short , activists say .
In June , following the unrest after George Floyd 's killing , Trump signed an executive order that would provide federal grants to improve police training , and create a national data base of police misconduct complaints .
But it fell well short of what activists say is needed .
Congress was unable to reconcile police reform proposals earlier this summer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ during their convention , Joe Biden has a 47-year record as a U.S. senator and then vice president .
During much of his Senate career , he was a member of and chairman of the Judiciary Committee , and in 1994 sponsored the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act .
It came in a different era , as Democrats set out to prove that they , too , were `` tough on crime . ''
The bill included a 10-year ban on assault-style weapons as well as the Violence Against Women Act @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a signal of his commitment to ending domestic violence .
But the act also included harsh penalties for drug-related crimes and money to construct new prisons , which critics said led to the mass incarceration of Black men .
It also included funding to hire 100,000 additional police officers .
Now , Biden has backed away from some of the provisions in that bill , while at the same time rejecting calls by some in his party to defund police departments .
He 's proposed a ban on police choke holds , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ national standards for when and how police use force , more mandatory data collection from local law enforcement , and other steps .
Biden 's running mate , Sen. Kamala Harris , brings her own record on criminal justice issues to the Democratic ticket .
She was San Francisco 's district attorney and then California 's attorney general before her election to the Senate .
As district attorney , she initiated a policy for first-time drug offenders to get a high school diploma and a job instead of prison .
As AG , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for a man who killed a police officer .
She also instituted a controversial policy that threatened to prosecute parents of children who skipped school as a way to reduce truancy levels .
She told NPR 's Morning Edition in March , when she was still running for president in the primaries , that `` nobody went to jail , and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of families went through our program , which was a program of getting greater resources to them so the child could be in school every day .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ with Republican Sen. Rand Paul a bail reform measure as a way of reducing the numbers of people held , arguing in a 2017 New York Times op-ed that `` excessive bail disproportionately harms people from low-income communities and communities of color . ''

Fact Check: Trump's And Biden's Records On Criminal Justice
Enlarge this image toggle caption John Duricka/AP John Duricka/AP
For four nights, speakers at the Republican National Convention pilloried Democrat Joe Biden over his alleged weakness on crime and painted a dystopian future if he were to be elected in November.
Biden and Democrats were "completely silent about the rioters and criminals spreading mayhem in Democrat-run cities," during their convention, President Trump charged on Thursday. The previous evening, Vice President Pence warned, "The hard truth is you will not be safe in Joe Biden's America."
The speeches came as residents of Kenosha, Wis., were reeling from the shooting by police of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, and the resulting protests — during which two people were fatally shot. The unrest follows turmoil in other cities after police killed George Floyd, also a Black man, in Minneapolis in May.
Pence claimed that Biden would "double down in the very policies that are leading to violence in American cites," to which Biden responded with a reminder that "right now ... we're in Donald Trump's America."
The current crime rate
Statistics show that some crime has been increasing in big cities, with mayors who are Democrats and Republicans. According to figures compiled by data analyst and consultant Jeff Asher, the murder rate this year has increased by 26% through July, compared with a year ago. Other violent crimes are up slightly, while property crimes are down by 7.7%.
This is a reversal of longer-term trends, in which violent crimes have been generally declining since the 1990s.
In an email, Asher says determining the cause for the increase this year is complicated.
"We barely have the data to recognize that a new trend is occurring, much less to be able to properly evaluate and diagnose its cause," he says. But the "intense stresses being placed on numerous aspects of society by the pandemic is as persuasive as any."
Trump's record
The Trump administration announced this summer that it was sending federal resources to cities, including additional FBI agents, along with U.S. marshals and agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, to — in the Justice Department's words — "fight the sudden surge of violent crime."
But Trump — who promised in his 2016 acceptance speech that "the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon, and I mean very soon, come to an end" — has a spotty record when it comes to criminal justice reform.
His signature achievement on the issue, the widely touted First Step Act, signed in 2018 and passed with bipartisan support in Congress, instituted sentencing reforms, including reducing harsh penalties for crack cocaine possession. And on Friday, Trump pardoned Alice Johnson, a criminal justice reform advocate who delivered a powerful address at the Republican National Convention this week and whose cause had been espoused by Kim Kardashian West. But some parts of the law have fallen short, activists say.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Mark Wilson/Getty Images Mark Wilson/Getty Images
In June, following the unrest after Floyd's killing, Trump signed an executive order that would provide federal grants to improve police training and create a national database of police misconduct complaints. But it fell well short of what activists say is needed.
Congress was unable to reconcile police reform proposals earlier this summer.
Biden's record
As Republicans were fond of noting during their convention, Biden has a 47-year record as a U.S. senator and then vice president. During much of his Senate career, he was a member of and chairman of the Judiciary Committee and in 1994 sponsored the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act.
It came in a different era, as Democrats set out to prove that they, too, were "tough on crime." The bill included a 10-year ban on assault-style weapons as well as the Violence Against Women Act, which Biden points to today as a signal of his commitment to ending domestic violence.
But the act also included harsh penalties for drug-related crimes and money to construct new prisons, which critics said led to the mass incarceration of Black men. It also included funding to hire 100,000 additional police officers.
Now, Biden has backed away from some of the provisions in that bill, while at the same time rejecting calls by some in his party to defund police departments.
He has proposed a ban on police chokeholds, a new federal police oversight commission, new national standards for when and how police use force, more mandatory data collection from local law enforcement and other steps.
Former prosecutor Kamala Harris
Biden's running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, brings her own record on criminal justice issues to the Democratic ticket. She was San Francisco's district attorney and then California's attorney general before her election to the Senate.
As district attorney, she initiated a policy for first-time drug offenders to get a high school diploma and a job instead of prison.
As attorney general, she refused to seek the death penalty for a man who killed a police officer. She also instituted a controversial policy that threatened to prosecute parents of children who skipped school as a way to reduce truancy.
She told NPR's Morning Edition in March, when she was still running for president in the Democratic primary, that "nobody went to jail, and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of families went through our program, which was a program of getting greater resources to them so the child could be in school every day."
In the Senate, she co-sponsored with Republican Sen. Rand Paul a bail reform measure as a way of reducing the number of people held, arguing in a 2017 New York Times op-ed with Rand that "excessive bail disproportionately harms people from low-income communities and communities of color."