Believe it or not, the news cycle sparked by President Trump's Hurricane Dorian tweet from more than a week ago isn't nearly over yet.
The New York Times reported on Monday that after the National Weather Service's Birmingham office contradicted the president in clarifying that Alabama was not at risk of being impacted by Dorian last week, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross "threatened to fire top employees" at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
When Trump on Sept. 1 tweeted that Alabama might be getting hit by Dorian "(much) harder than anticipated," the NWS in Birmingham quickly jumped in to note that actually, "Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian." A defensive Trump in the following days would repeatedly reject claims that his original tweet was false, pointing to information showing Alabama could be hit that was days old by the time his tweet came and even pulling out a custom weather map with a circle drawn onto it to cover Alabama.
Ross' threat of firings apparently came on Friday, when the Times reports he called the NOAA's acting administrator, Neil Jacobs, and demanded he "fix the agency's perceived contradiction of the president." When Jacobs resisted, Ross reportedly told Jacobs "that the political staff at NOAA would be fired if the situation was not fixed." Later that day, the NOAA released a statement backing Trump and dismissing the tweet from the Birmingham office, saying it was "inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time." Just when you thought the fallout of Trump's weather tweeting and Sharpie drawing had died down, it appears many more days of it may lie ahead.
Update 6:26 p.m. ET: A Commerce Department spokesperson has now denied the New York Times story, calling it "false" and saying in a statement, "Secretary Ross did not threaten to fire any NOAA staff over forecasting and public statements about Hurricane Dorian." Brendan Morrow
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield on Tuesday said if everyone in the United States wore face masks, the coronavirus could be "under control" within one to two months.
During a webinar with the Journal of the American Medical Association's Howard Bauchner, Redfield said he was "glad" President Trump wore a mask in public for the first time over the weekend, as this "set the example" for others. "The time is now" to wear face coverings, and he believes "if we could get everybody to wear a mask right now, I think in four, six, eight weeks we could bring this epidemic under control."
Redfield is concerned about this year's flu season coinciding with the coronavirus pandemic, and urged people to get their flu shots. "I do think the fall and the winter of 2020 and 2021 are going to be probably one of the most difficult times that we experienced in American public health," he said. "Keeping the health care system from being overstretched I think is really important, and the degree we are able to do that will define how well we get through the fall and winter." Catherine Garcia
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was hospitalized early Tuesday, after experiencing fever and chills, a Supreme Court spokeswoman said.
Ginsburg, 87, was evaluated at a hospital in Washington, D.C., on Monday night, before being admitted to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Spokeswoman Kathleen Arberg said Ginsburg "underwent an endoscopic procedure at Johns Hopkins this afternoon to clean out a bile duct stent that was placed last August. The justice is resting comfortably and will stay in the hospital for a few days to receive intravenous antibiotic treatment."
In May, Ginsburg received treatment at Johns Hopkins for a gallbladder condition. She has battled cancer four times, and last August, underwent radiation for a tumor on her pancreas. Catherine Garcia
The results from the first phase of Moderna's coronavirus vaccine trial are out, and the promising findings are in line with some early data from the study released in May.
The study, published Tuesday in The New England Journal of Medicine, found the experimental mRNA vaccine — which requires two doses a month apart — induced coronavirus immune responses in all 45 participants, just as scientists had hoped. There were some mild side effects, including fatigue, chills, and fevers, but The Associated Press notes those aren't uncommon with other vaccines, and there have been no major safety concerns.
Moderna will begin its final step at the end of July, a 30,000-person study to prove if the shots are strong enough to protect people from the virus. While the first phase does indicate the vaccine produces antibodies geared toward fighting off the virus, it's less clear if the levels of antibodies are enough to actually fend off infection. Read the full results of the study at The New England Journal of Medicine, as well as more context at The Associated Press. Tim O'Donnell
The creators of Glee are remembering Naya Rivera as a "joy to be around," and setting up a college fund for her young son, after her tragic death.
Glee creators Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Ian Brennan released a tribute to Rivera on Tuesday after officials said they recovered her body at Lake Piru in California, where she went missing days earlier. The actress, who played Santana Lopez on Glee, was feared dead after her 4-year-old son was found alone in a boat she had rented. Ventura County Sheriff Bill Ayub said this week Rivera "mustered enough energy to get her son back onto the boat, but not enough to save herself," and an autopsy has since confirmed her cause of death as accidental drowning. She was 33.
"We are heartbroken over the loss of our friend Naya Rivera," Murphy, Falchuk, and Brennan said, per Variety. They described her as "one of the most talented, special stars we would ever have the pleasure of working with," someone who was "a joy to write for, a joy to direct and a joy to be around."
"She was warm and caring and fiercely protective of the rest of the cast," they go on to say. "She was tough and demanding. She was fun. She was kind. She was generous. ... Naya was more than just an actor on our show — she was our friend."
The statement ends with Murphy, Falchuk, and Brennan saying that their "hearts go out to her family" and that they are "in the process of creating a college fund for the beautiful son Naya loved most of all."
Among Rivera's former Glee colleagues who previously paid tribute this week were Jane Lynch, who remembered "what a force" she was, and Chris Colfer, who wrote, "Naya was truly one of a kind, and she always will be." Brendan Morrow
Florida is now leading much of the world in new coronavirus cases, and it's showing no signs of slowing down.
Florida reported 9,194 new coronavirus cases in the past day on Tuesday afternoon, bring its total case count to 291,629. A total of 132 new deaths were reported, bringing that count to 4,409, per the Miami Herald.
Miami-Dade County led the new case count at 2,090, leading one infectious disease expert to deem Miami the new "epicenter of the pandemic," CNN reports. "What we were seeing in Wuhan six months ago, five months ago — now we are there," said Lilian Abbo, of the Jackson Health System, during a Monday news conference held by the Miami-Dade County mayor.
The county has seen coronavirus hospitalizations grow by 68 percent and the number of ICU beds used go up by 69 percent in the past two weeks. The number of ventilators in use has also more than doubled during that time. Kathryn Krawczyk
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has announced a "return to the status quo" on international student visas.
Following several schools' decisions to go fully remote to stem COVID-19 spread, ICE announced foreign students could not access essential F and M visas they'd need to study in the U.S. But facing opposition from more than 50 colleges and universities, the Trump administration rescinded that rule change, a federal judge in Boston announced Tuesday.
ICE's initial decision came after Harvard University and other schools announced all their classes would be fully online in the fall, though most schools said they'd house students who could not learn effectively in their homes. That included students in countries wracked by civil unrest.
Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology specifically cited those students in suing ICE for its decision, and said it "would bar hundreds of thousands of international students at American universities from the United States." Dozens of universities joined the suit, which went to court Tuesday. That's where a judge announced ICE would "return to the status quo" and effectively drop its rule change. Kathryn Krawczyk