President Trump said for the first time on Wednesday that he supports a path to U.S. citizenship for young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children, in a potential breakthrough on stalled immigration talks in Congress. Trump's staff was caught off-guard by the comments, which Trump made during an impromptu appearance at a background briefing on hardline immigration demands the White House was planning to roll out next Monday, The New York Times reports.
Trump said DREAMers should be rewarded for their hard work with a chance to "morph into" citizens in 10 to 12 years, the central feature of a bipartisan Senate deal he rejected last week. In return, he demanded $5 billion for border security, $25 billion for a U.S.-Mexico border wall (which he said he would build "way under budget"), and an end to immigration programs he doesn't like.
The "legislative framework" the White House was planning to unveil next week focused on the hardline parts of that immigration equation, the Times reports, and after Trump's "off-the-cuff comments" seemed to "suggest flexibility," White House staff started "scrambling in what one official called a 'fire drill.' After delaying the briefing for nearly an hour, Mr. Trump's aides decided to postpone it until Thursday as they tried to reconcile their plans with the president's words." Trump ended with a joke that he would like to see an immigration deal by the time he comes back from the World Economic Forum in Switzerland on Friday. Peter Weber
Internal talking points from the Department of Homeland Security directed federal law enforcement officers to speak sympathetically about Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old Trump supporter facing intentional homicide charges for the shooting deaths of two people in Kenosha, Wisconsin, during a chaotic night on Aug. 25, NBC News reports. Rittenhouse brought an AR-15-style rifle to Kenosha from his home in Illinois to guard private businesses alongside armed militia groups. According to police and video footage, he killed one protester, then shot two more after he tripped while trying to flee the scene.
The talking points obtained by NBC News urge federal officials to tell the media that Rittenhouse "took his rifle to the scene of the rioting to help defend small business owners," and that "Kyle was seen being chased and attacked by rioters before allegedly shooting three of them, killing two." Also, "subsequent video has emerged reportedly showing that there were 'multiple gunmen' involved, which would lend more credence to the self-defense claims," the documents claim.
It isn't clear if the talking points originated in the department of in the White House, where President Trump and his press secretary have defended Rittenhouse. Three former Homeland Security officials told NBC News law enforcement isn't typically instructed to discuss particular groups or people before an investigation is finished. "It is as unprecedented as it is wrong," said one, Peter Boogaard.
The talking points also advise telling reporters that Patriot Prayer, a right-wing group in Oregon that clashes with anti-racism protesters, is not racist. One protester, Michael Reinoehl, apparently shot dead a Patriot Prayer member in Portland, before Washington state law enforcement, working for the U.S. Marshals, fatally shot him outside an apartment. Before being killed, Reinoehl said he was acting in self defense, and a witness said the officers did not identify themselves before killing Reinoehl and disputed police assertions that he was armed and fired at police. Trump said at Tuesday's debate that the Marshals "took care of business"; earlier, he called Reinoehl's killing "retribution." Peter Weber
Chrissy Teigen and John Legend have tragically lost their child due to pregnancy complications.
Teigen and Legend shared the heartbreaking news in a statement on Teigen's Instagram and Twitter pages after she was recently hospitalized due to bleeding during her pregnancy, per CNN.
"We are shocked and in the kind of deep pain you only hear about, the kind of pain we've never felt before," the statement said. "We were never able to stop the bleeding and give our baby the fluids he needed, despite bags and bags of blood transfusions. It just wasn't enough."
The couple went on to say that they had picked out the name Jack for their third child, writing, "Jack worked so hard to be a part of our little family, and he will be, forever."
Teigen had recently shared that she had been hospitalized on Sunday after bleeding for around a month and after having been on "serious bed rest" for several weeks while about halfway through her pregnancy. She and Legend on Thursday said they are "so grateful for the life we have" with their two children, Luna and Miles, and thanked those who have sent their thoughts and prayers.
"On this darkest of days, we will grieve, we will cry our eyes out," the statement said. "But we will hug and love each other harder and get through it." Brendan Morrow
A study of 85,000 people with COVID-19 in two southern Indian states and 575,000 people they came in contact with found that children 17 and under contract and transmit the new coronavirus at rates similar to the rest of the population. Children age 5 to 17 passed the virus on to 18 percent of close contacts their same age, a team of U.S. and Indian researchers reported Wednesday in the journal Science.
These findings are particularly important given "previous reports suggesting a minor role of children in the pandemic," Antonio Salas, a Spanish researcher who was not involved in the Indian study, told the Los Angeles Times. "National policies on how to proceed with children in schools and other social activities could change dramatically if the scientific evidence underpins the idea that children can infect as efficiently as adults, and even more, they could also behave as super-spreaders."
The two Indian states studied, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, have robust contract tracing and other public health programs. The other major finding from the study involved super-spreaders. While 71 percent of people infected with COVID-19 did not appear to pass the virus on to anybody else, just 8 percent of infected people accounted for 60 percent of the new infections, said lead author Ramanan Laxminarayan of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics, and Policy in New Delhi.
"Super-spreading events are the rule rather than the exception," Laxminarayan said. "It has lots of implications for modeling COVID, for how to keep places safe."
While children 17 and under were found to be more efficient disease transmitters than previously understood, they had the lowest death rate of any age cohort. Overall, deaths increased with age up to 65, then appeared to drop off. New York Times science reporter Apoorva Mandavilli said that might be because people who make it past India's life expectancy of 69 years told tend to be wealthy, with good heath care. Peter Weber
It was love at first sight for Michele D'Alpaos and Paola Agnelli.
D'Alpaos, 38, and Agnelli, 40, have lived across from each other in Verona, Italy, for years, but didn't "meet" until D'Alpaos saw Agnelli out on her balcony one evening in mid-March. "I was immediately struck by the beauty of this girl, by her smile," D'Alpaos told The Washington Post. "I had to know her."
Agnelli was standing outside with her sister, who played the violin nightly as a way to cheer up her neighbors amid the coronavirus pandemic. When D'Alpaos caught her eye, it was "a magical moment," she said. D'Alpaos' sister told him she knew Agnelli from their gym, and gave him her name. He immediately found her on Instagram, and struck up a conversation.
They messaged each other for hours, before moving onto texting and then phone calls. Agnelli said they felt an immediate connection, and as they got to know each other, she learned they shared "the values you could build a relationship on." D'Alpaos sent Agnelli flowers and wrote "Paola" on an old bedsheet that he hung from his apartment complex, and they counted the days until the lockdown would be over and they could go on their first in-person date.
After 10 weeks, the lockdown in Verona was lifted, and they were able to meet in a local park. They have since become engaged, and look forward to moving into their own apartment and starting a family. Agnelli told the Post she believes this was meant to be, as her late grandfather was also named Michele: "Many times, I think that it was he who sent me Michele, with the same name, the same kindness, the same sympathy and intelligence." Catherine Garcia