On the eve of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman's public testimony before House impeachment investigators, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) sent a letter to House Republicans, questioning Vindman's credibility.
Vindman, the National Security Council's top Ukraine expert and a Purple Heart recipient, is set to testify on Tuesday. He listened to President Trump's July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and immediately shared his concerns over Trump's request that Zelensky launch an investigation into a political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter.
In his letter, Johnson opines that there are "bureaucrats and staff members within the executive branch" who have "never accepted President Trump as legitimate and resent his unorthodox style and his intrusion onto their 'turf.' They react by leaking to the press and participating in the ongoing effort to sabotage his policies and, if possible, remove him from office. It is entirely possible that Vindman fits this profile."
Johnson tried to defend Trump throughout the letter, saying he could not recall Trump ever talking to him about the Bidens, while also attacking the whistleblower whose complaint about Trump's call launched the House impeachment inquiry. "If the whistleblower's intention was to improve and solidify the relationship between the U.S. and Ukraine, he or she failed miserably." Catherine Garcia
Everyone gets duped now and then. That goes for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well.
Netanyahu recently showed his cabinet a video he claimed was evidence Iran was engineering a novel coronavirus coverup, Axios reports. Tehran has reported more than 47,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 3,000 deaths, but those figures have been eyed suspiciously by much the rest of the world, and it's no surprise Israel, which, to put it gently, does not get along with Iran is among the doubters.
The video showed people dumping bodies into garbage dumps, two cabinet ministers told Axios. They said Netanyahu's national security adviser, Meir Ben Shabbat, showed him the video, but he probably should've checked his source. Upon further review the clip turned out to be a scene from the 2007 Hallmark Channel miniseries, Pandemic.
The Israeli government certainly did a bad job of vetting the clip, but the fact it made it's way up the flagpole wasn't completely random. Iranians were reportedly sharing the footage on social media last week. Read more at Axios. Tim O'Donnell
Respirator masks, gloves, and other protective equipment kept in the U.S. government's emergency stockpile are almost all used up, Department of Homeland Security officials tell The Washington Post.
Hospital workers already lack supplies they need to protect themselves as they treat COVID-19 patients, and an empty stockpile will only exacerbate the problem. But "the stockpile was designed to respond to handful of cities. It was never built or designed to fight a 50-state pandemic," and so it's already close to empty even before the pandemic has hit its peak, one DHS official said.
The national stockpile is one of the few escapes from a marketplace full of price gouging, and as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) described in a recent press conference, shortages have forced states to outbid each other just to get necessary supplies. "The supply chain for PPE worldwide has broken down, and there is a lot of price gouging happening," the anonymous DHS official told the Post. It all leaves hospitals and other care facilities with a risk of completely running out of supplies, another official said. Kathryn Krawczyk
A Chinese county that was largely unscathed by the novel COVID-19 coronavirus went into lockdown Wednesday, signaling fears of a possible second wave in the country where the virus originated, The South China Morning Post reports.
The county of Jia in Henan province, home to 600,000 people, is now in lockdown after infections reportedly spread at a local hospital. There were previously only 12 confirmed cases in Henan, despite it being situated just north of Hubei province, where China's epicenter, Wuhan, is located. However, U.S. intelligence reportedly believes China under-reported the actual number of cases.
Either way, the new lockdown, which shuts down all non-essential business and requires people to carry special permits to leave their homes, and wear face masks and have their temperature taken when out and about, comes at a time when the country clearly wants to get its economy up and running again. It's unclear if such measures will be limited to the county or if it's a sign of things to come for the rest of the world's most populous country, but President Xi Jinping has warned that China must return to normal gradually in the hopes of preventing a full-scale COVID-19 return. Read more at The South China Morning Post. Tim O'Donnell
Yet another big movie is clearing out of 2020 completely.
Universal announced Wednesday its animated sequel Minions: The Rise of Gru, which was originally set for release this summer, has been delayed one year and will now hit theaters in July 2021, per The Hollywood Reporter.
It had previously been announced that Minions would not make its previously-scheduled release date because Illumination's studio in Paris was forced to temporarily close amid the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, though it was unclear at the time whether the film could still hit theaters sometime in 2020. The first Minions, a Despicable Me prequel, took in more than $1 billion worldwide in 2015 and was one of the highest-grossing films of that year.
This is just the latest example of a major 2020 film being delayed all the way until next year because of the coronavirus pandemic after Sony on Tuesday delayed Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which was scheduled to hit theaters this July, to March 2021. Universal also previously moved the ninth Fast & Furious film from May 2020 to April 2021, while Disney postponed Black Widow indefinitely.
The summer movie season typically brings in major business for Hollywood, but fewer and fewer films remain on the calendar for that period this year as theaters throughout the United States remain largely closed in accordance with social distancing guidelines. A rare blockbuster to be postponed to another date this summer was Wonder Woman 1984, as Warner Bros. moved the DC sequel from June to August 2020 in hopes theaters would widely reopen by then.
Whether they will, and whether audiences will quickly return if they do, isn't clear. AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron on Tuesday told CNBC he "would love to think" there can still be a summer movie season this year, but as far as when the chain's theaters can begin resuming operations, he said at this time, "nobody knows." Brendan Morrow
Experts are now convinced a February Champions League soccer game between the Italian club Atalanta and the Spanish club Valencia was at the forefront of an explosion of COVID-19 cases in Italy's Lombardy region, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in Europe, The Wall Street Journal reports.
More than 40,000 people crammed into San Siro stadium in Milan to watch the contest, a 4-1 victory for Atalanta. Then, two weeks later Bergamo, where Atalanta is based, experienced a major spike in cases, with scientists pinpointing the match as a crucial petri dish. "Two weeks after Feb. 19, there was an incredible explosion of cases," said Dr. Francesco Le Foche, an immunologist in charge of infectious diseases at Policlinico Umberto I in Rome. "The match played a huge role in disseminating coronavirus throughout Lombardy and in Bergamo in particular."
To put it in perspective, 35 percent of Valencia's traveling squad tested positive for the virus after the team returned to Spain. Only one Atalanta player tested positive, but the club has published death notices on its website for five people linked to the virus who were close to the club within the last two weeks, all of whom were present for Atalanta's victory over Valencia.
The match shows the type of role sporting events can play in furthering the spread of the virus, further explaining why nearly every professional league has shut down operations, and casting doubt on whether some sports will come back at all this year. Read more at The Wall Street Journal. Tim O'Donnell