French President Macron Tests Positive For COVID-19

PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron has tested positive for COVID-19, the presidential Elysee Palace announced on Thursday.

It said the president took a test “as soon as the first symptoms appeared.” The brief statement did not say what symptoms Macron experienced.

It said he would isolate himself for seven days. “He will continue to work and take care of his activities at a distance,” it added.

It was not immediately clear what contact tracing efforts were in progress. Macron attended a European Union summit at the end of last week, where he notably had a bilateral meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He met Wednesday with the prime minister of Portugal. There was no immediate comment from Portuguese officials.

Macron on Wednesday also held the government’s weekly Cabinet meeting in the presence of Prime Minister Jean Castex and other ministers. Castex’s office said that the prime minister is also self-isolating for seven days.

The French presidency confirmed that Macron’s trip to Lebanon scheduled for next week is being canceled.

Macron and other government officials repeatedly say that they are sticking to strict sanitary protocols during the pandemic, including not shaking hands, wearing a mask and keeping distance from other people.

Macron is following French health authorities’ recommendations that since September have reduced the self-isolation time from 14 days to seven. Authorities said at the time that this is the period when there is the greatest risk of contagion and that reducing it allows better enforcement of the measure.

French health authorities argued this week that the 14-day quarantine was not well-respected by many in the country who considered it too long.

Birx Says Rapport With Trump Is ‘Very Clear In Private’ Despite Lack Of Public Push Back

Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, on Wednesday defended her lack of issuing a forceful rebuke of President Trump after the sitting president suggested unproven COVID-19 treatments to the public earlier this year. Continue reading “Birx Says Rapport With Trump Is ‘Very Clear In Private’ Despite Lack Of Public Push Back”

15 AGs Demand WH Retain Docs Despite Trump’s ‘Utter Disregard’ For Record Keeping

Fifteen Democratic state attorneys general on Wednesday said in a letter to White House counsel Pat Cipollone that President Trump has an obligation to comply with federal laws on record-keeping even in the waning weeks of his presidency. Continue reading “15 AGs Demand WH Retain Docs Despite Trump’s ‘Utter Disregard’ For Record Keeping”

Caution: Rough Road Ahead

For several weeks now evidence has been accumulating that the COVID-19 vaccine won’t be widely available until significantly later in 2021 than the Trump administration is publicly claiming. Here’s some of the best evidence yet, picked up today by our Josh Kovensky in little-noticed remarks from some of the lead officials on the Pentagon’s Operation Warp Speed.

Vaccine Officials Contradict Azar On When It Will Be Available To Wider Public

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar has been offering a rosy timeframe for when the COVID-19 vaccine will be widely available, but other officials working on the Pentagon-led effort to speed the virus to the public are now presenting a less optimistic forecast.

Continue reading “Vaccine Officials Contradict Azar On When It Will Be Available To Wider Public”

McConnell > Trump

Not a huge thing perhaps. But this is worth noting. Donald Trump has been lashing out at any and every Republican willing to question his claim to have won the 2020 election. But his swipe at Mitch McConnell today was really barely a swipe at all. Perhaps somewhere between a nudge and a plea. Trump has been go wild on Governors like Brian Kemp of Georgia and Doug Doucey of Arizona. He’s called for them to be primaried or even jailed. But Trump seems to know that he needs to tread gently with McConnell. That’s his limit. With Mitch he goes beta.

COVID Testing Czar Blasts GOPer For Dismissing COVID As ‘Phony Pandemic’

Adm. Brett Giroir, the Trump administration’s COVID-19 testing czar, did not take Rep.-elect Bob Good’s (R-VA) remarks downplaying the severity of surging cases of COVID-19 nationwide as a “phony pandemic” lightly during an interview on CNN Wednesday. Continue reading “COVID Testing Czar Blasts GOPer For Dismissing COVID As ‘Phony Pandemic’”

Claiming Fraud And ‘Stolen’ Election, Senate GOPers Continue To Do Trump’s Dirty Work

During a hearing Wednesday, Republican senators continued to spew nonsense about the 2020 election, advancing an effort to sow doubt in the election’s results even after a majority of members of the Electoral College formally cast their votes for President-elect Joe Biden. 

Continue reading “Claiming Fraud And ‘Stolen’ Election, Senate GOPers Continue To Do Trump’s Dirty Work”

Emails Show Trump Appointee Pushing For Herd Immunity Through Mass COVID Infections

Paul Alexander, a Trump appointee, urged senior officials to let “infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged [people]” get infected with COVID-19 to create “herd immunity,” according to emails obtained by the House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus.

Continue reading “Emails Show Trump Appointee Pushing For Herd Immunity Through Mass COVID Infections”

MLB Reclassifies Negro Leagues As Major League

NEW YORK (AP) — Willie Mays will add some hits to his record, Monte Irvin’s big league batting average should climb over .300 and Satchel Paige may add nearly 150 victories to his total.

Josh Gibson, the greatest of all Negro League sluggers, might just wind up with a major league record, too.

The statistics and records of greats like Gibson, Paige and roughly 3,400 other players are set to join Major League Baseball’s books after MLB announced Wednesday it is reclassifying the Negro Leagues as a major league.

MLB said Wednesday it was “correcting a longtime oversight in the game’s history” by elevating the Negro Leagues on the centennial of its founding. The Negro Leagues consisted of seven leagues, and MLB will include records from those circuits between 1920-48. The Negro Leagues began to dissolve one year after Jackie Robinson became MLB’s first Black player with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.

Those leagues were excluded in 1969 when the Special Committee on Baseball Records identified six official “major leagues” dating to 1876.

“It is MLB’s view that the Committee’s 1969 omission of the Negro Leagues from consideration was clearly an error that demands today’s designation,” the league said in a statement.

The league will work with the Elias Sports Bureau to review Negro Leagues statistics and records and figure out how to incorporate them into MLB’s history. There was no standard method of record keeping for the Negro Leagues, but there are enough box scores to stich together some of its statistical past.

For instance, Mays could be credited with 16 hits from his 1948 season with the Alabama Black Barons. Irvin, a teammate of Mays’ with the New York Giants, could see his career average climb from .293 to .304 if numbers listed at Baseball-Reference from his nine Negro League seasons are accurate. And Paige, who currently is credited with 28 major league wins, should add at least 146 to his total.

While some have estimated Gibson slugged over 800 homers during 16 Negro League seasons, it’s unlikely that enough records exist for him to officially pass Barry Bonds for the career record at 762.

Depending on what Elias and MLB rule, though, Gibson could wind up with another notable record. His .441 batting average in 1943 would be the best season mark ever, edging Hugh Duffy’s .440 from 1894. Gibson’s line came in fewer than 80 games, however, far short of the modern standard of 162.

“The perceived deficiencies of the Negro Leagues’ structure and scheduling were born of MLB’s exclusionary practices, and denying them major league status has been a double penalty, much like that exacted of Hall of Fame candidates prior to Satchel Paige’s induction in 1971,” baseball historian John Thorn said. “Granting MLB status to the Negro Leagues a century after their founding is profoundly gratifying.”

MLB said it considered input from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, the Negro League Researchers and Authors Group and studies by other baseball authors and researchers.

“All of us who love baseball have long known that the Negro Leagues produced many of our game’s best players, innovations and triumphs against a backdrop of injustice,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement. “We are now grateful to count the players of the Negro Leagues where they belong: as Major Leaguers within the official historical record.”