How much harm should law enforcement be allowed to do in the name of keeping us safe?

In response to the largely undiminished spread of COVID-19 across America, states have instituted a slew of new mandates aimed at keeping people socially distant for long enough to flatten the ballooning rates of infection. In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio has authorized the NYPD to dole out $500 fines to city residents who flout social distancing policies. In Alaska, Governor Mike Dunleavy has temporarily prohibited all intrastate travel, unless it is “to support critical infrastructure; or for critical personal needs.” In Lexington, Kentucky, local police recently set up a new call-in hotline that residents can use to report neighbors who are gathering in public; over the course of just one weekend, the hotline received 86 calls. 

But in several recent, high-profile examples, police can be seen using excessive force and even violence against individuals they have determined to be ignoring social distancing guidelines — prompting questions about how far law enforcement should be allowed to go in service of “flattening the curve.”

Video taken in a Harlem subway station on Friday night shows NYPD officers restraining a crying child as a woman claiming to be the boy’s mother protests. According to bystanders, the boy had been selling candy on the subway car before he was apprehended. “They looked like kidnappers, like they were trying to kidnap the little boy,” an onlooker who had filmed parts of the incident told Gothamist. “I felt outraged. It’s a little boy. Can’t they talk to him on his level and say it’s not safe, go home? Why did they need three officers to take him to the precinct?”

Cell phone video shot yesterday on the 145th Street subway platform in Harlem shows a group of NYPD officers terrorizing a little boy for allegedly selling candy. pic.twitter.com/rWOj0nabGp

— Rebecca Kavanagh (@DrRJKavanagh) April 12, 2020

Just one day later, video footage taken in Philadelphia shows at least four Philadelphia Police Department officers violently dragging a man without a face mask off a city bus. The incident came after the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, or SEPTA, announced a new policy on April 7 mandating that all riders “wear masks or other facial coverings… to protect both riders and operators.” In response to the video footage, which prompted outraged reactions online, SEPTA told ABC News that it would no longer allow enforcement of the policy.

Although the extreme measures being taken by law enforcement are no doubt being deployed under the logic that they will keep communities safer in the long run, legal advocates are worried that ramped up policing will tell a familiar tale for people of color and low income communities.

“No one is made safer by the abusive policing we witnessed in the footage from Harlem or Philadelphia,” Maryanne Kaishian, a senior staff attorney at the Brooklyn Defender Services, told Refinery29. “In addition to the fact that no public health interest was served, both the victims and witnesses of those abuses must now potentially contend with lasting trauma.”

According to Kaishian, the decision to criminalize individuals who do not comply with social distancing guidelines will likely have predictable outcomes for Black, Latinx and low-income individuals — the same communities already struggling with disproportionately higher rates of the virus as a result of preexisting economic conditions that make it more difficult to access things like adequate medical care and fresh, healthy fruits and vegetables.

The problem with criminalizing people for ignoring social distancing guidelines is systemic, Kaishian said: The individuals most likely to be outside during a pandemic in the first place are those who can’t afford to stay inside or who do not have access to private spaces, such as “hourly workers, the poor, and those without homes, as well as multigenerational families or multiple roommates living together in tiny NYC apartments.”

“We need to reimagine our solutions to public health concerns,” Kaishian said. “What if officers were handing out face masks instead of violently arresting someone who does not have one? What if a little boy and his mother were not in a position where they needed to sell candy on the subway in order to survive?”

The “rules” for coronavirus have been well-established: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reversed its recommendations on the efficacy of wearing face coverings in public, and has long advised that individuals remain at least six feet apart in order to mitigate transmission since the outbreak began. Still, in high-traffic cities like New York and Philadelphia, where many are finding themselves out of work and struggling to cope with these new realities, the policing of social distance ordinances threaten to disproportionately affect the communities where staying indoors means a threat to one’s livelihood.

If we’re ever to hope to return to some version of the social lives we left behind, staying apart now in order to slow the spread of COVID-19 in the future will be critical. But allowing police to use excessive force in the name of upholding social distancing guidelines — and the development of new surveillance technologies designed to assist police in penalizing perceived transgressions — will only serve to erode security and further terrorize the vulnerable communities already being hit the hardest.

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As COVID-19-related disruption continues to wreak havoc on the American economy, President Donald Trump falsely claimed in a Monday tweet that he can use his federal powers to supplant governors’ authority when it comes to reopening states for business.

“Some in the Fake News Media are saying that it is the Governors decision to open up the states, not that of the President of the United States & the Federal Government,” Trump tweeted on Monday. “Let it be fully understood that this is incorrect.”

In response to the rapid spread of coronavirus, states have taken broad steps to mitigate transmission, including implementing CDC-encouraged restrictions on social distancing that have had devastating implications for workers and businesses. The food service, tourism and entertainment industries have been hit particularly hard, and an estimated 6.6 million Americans had filed for unemployment as of April 10.

Despite measures taken by the federal government to slow the spread of the virus, state legislators are the ones putting mandates into order, state by state, depending on each area’s outbreak. Although Trump touted his ability to reopen certain locations as he sees fit, Twitter was quick to notice that he is forgetting one small law that makes this impossible: The 10th Amendment.

According to the 10th Amendment, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Essentially, the president’s powers fall short of being able to compel Americans to return to shuttered office buildings, if local state leaders want them to stay closed.

“It is the decision of the President, and for many good reasons,” Trump continued. “With that being said, the Administration and I are working closely with the Governors, and this will continue. A decision by me, in conjunction with the Governors and input from others, will be made shortly!”

For the purpose of creating conflict and confusion, some in the Fake News Media are saying that it is the Governors decision to open up the states, not that of the President of the United States & the Federal Government. Let it be fully understood that this is incorrect….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 13, 2020

But legal experts say that’s not how it works. “This is Federalism 101,” Robert Chesney, a professor of national security law at the University of Texas, told Reuters. “The president can advocate to his heart’s content, but he can’t actually commandeer the state governments to make them change their policies. He has no such inherent authority, nor is there any federal statute that purports to give him such authority.”

Even Trump’s conservative cohorts have contradicted his claims that he alone holds the authority to reopen states for business. In response to a tweet that seemingly criticized Trump for effectively hobbling the economy by instituting federal “stay-at-home” guidelines, far-right talk show host Bill Mitchell cited the 10th amendment in his argument that the president couldn’t possibly be at fault. 

“Well friend, I suggest you read the Constitution,” Mitchell wrote. “The 10th Amendment clearly limits Federal Authority when it comes to State Police Powers, quarantines, etc. President Trump can “inspire” Governors to act, but he has ZERO power to back that up.”

Others also spoke out on Twitter to correct Trump’s false claims, calling them baseless and actually defiant of our country’s Constitution.

Wrong. It is not the president's decision. 95% of the country is under some form of lockdown. The reason it's not 100% is because it's a state-level decision and some governors decided not to go with full, statewide lockdowns. Trump has limited power here due to 10th Amendment. https://t.co/e3V16c62rx

— John Haltiwanger (@jchaltiwanger) April 13, 2020

All of the talk about Trump “opening the economy” is ignorance!

The President never declared martial law. He never shut anything down. So how can he open it up?

The Governor’s under their 10th amendment powers shut states & cities down. Only they can open things back up!

— Sophia A. Nelson (@IAmSophiaNelson) April 13, 2020

Bruh. His excuse for not enforcing a national lockdown was that he left it up to the governors & states because he respected the 10th Amendment and now he flips it. https://t.co/lvyOTRFc7g

— Jonathan Morrison 🙋🏻‍♂️ (@tldtoday) April 13, 2020

Trump has not yet responded to criticism of his Twitter rampage as of Monday, though it seems that even his supporters have come out in strides to refute his statements.

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If you’re worried that the United States is hurtling towards a ruinous period of economic depression that will have rippling implications for local businesses and family wealth for generations to come, fear not: On Tuesday, Ivanka Trump announced that she’s on the case. As coronavirus-related disruption continues to wreak havoc on the American economy, the First Daughter and Trump’s Senior Advisor dropped hints on Tuesday that she plans to take on an expanded role in the White House’s small business recovery initiative. 

In the years since her father assumed the presidency, Trump has taken on a diverse portfolio of politically benign initiatives, ranging from women’s economic empowerment, family issues, the prevention of human trafficking and the promotion of STEM education. As analysts estimate that COVID-19 could result in a loss of 3 million jobs by summertime and potentially lead 15,000 brick-and-mortar stores to shutter in 2020 alone, Trump has also seemingly decided to take up the mantle of the White House’s program designed to help ailing small businesses.

The Trump administration recently approved the largest stimulus package in American history — a $2 trillion bailout that includes one-time payments of $1,200 for adults and also earmarks $367 billion to help small businesses. Known as the Paycheck Protection Program, those loans will be run Small Business Administration, and Ivanka — who recently sat down with her father to participate in a teleconference call with banking executives — will reportedly be at the helm.

“During recent weeks, Ivanka has been meeting on the phone with members of Congress and CEOs of the country’s major financial institutions in the run up to and the launch of the PPP,” a White House official told CNN. “Her calls to financial institutions were to encourage them to step up and support small businesses.”

Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank, Visa, Mastercard, Grand Rapids State Bank and Community Spirit Bank were reportedly among the private sector investments being courted, CNN reports. “When we began making phone calls to each of you — some of the largest lenders in the country, bankers, credit card companies, we asked you to provide additional relief, private sector-driven relief to our incredible small businesses. And you’ve answered that call,” Ivanka reportedly said during the teleconference call.

On Tuesday, Ivanka also posted a message to her Instagram account meant to assure small business owners that their interests were being looked after. “We’ll keep fighting for you, we’re gonna get through this,” she says in the video. “It’s going to be brighter on the other side. And until then, we’ve got your back.”

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Citing the need for vital mental health support among the Black communities currently being hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic, Empire and Hidden Figures star Taraji P. Henson has launched a free virtual therapy campaign for families and individuals dealing with fallout from the virus.

Henson unveiled the campaign, which was created to help “under-served communities experiencing life-changing events related to, or triggered by, the COVID-19 pandemic,” on Instagram on Wednesday. 

The campaign is being sponsored by the Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation, named for Henson’s father, who suffered from mental health challenges after serving in the Vietnam War. The foundation, according to its website, is “committed to changing the perception of mental illness in the African-American community by encouraging those who suffer with this debilitating illness to get the help they need.”

“In the African-American community, we’ve been taught to tough it out, hide our suffering, but this is something none of us have ever experienced, and no one should suffer in silence,” Henson said on Instagram.

According to the campaign’s website, the “COVID-19 Free Virtual Therapy Support Campaign” will work to ensure that “individuals with life-changing stressors and anxiety related to the coronavirus will have the cost for up to five (5) individual sessions defrayed on a first come, first serve basis until all funds are committed or exhausted.”

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A post shared by taraji p henson (@tarajiphenson) on Apr 8, 2020 at 7:33am PDT

Although racial data on the coronavirus’ impact is so far limited, research suggests that people of color — and Black Americans in particular — are dying at disproportionately higher rates in the United States. In Chicago, for example, 72 percent of virus-related fatalities have been among the city’s Black community, despite the fact that African-Americans account for a little less than a third of the population.

“Those numbers take your breath away, they really do,” Lori Lightfoot, Chicago’s first black woman mayor, told the New York Times. The statistics, she added, were “among the most shocking things I think I’ve seen as mayor.”

And Chicago isn’t an outlier. Black people account for about 70 percent of those dead from coronavirus in Louisiana, and about 40 percent in Michigan, despite making up a small minority of the population in those states.

Although researchers have yet to pinpoint definitive causes of the disparities, decades of structural and economic inequality have no doubt been contributing factors. Black Americans are far more likely to work jobs that they are unable to perform remotely, for example, and are also statistically far less likely to have easy access to adequate medical care or grocery stores selling healthy, fresh food, according to the Times.

“These communities, structurally, they’re breeding grounds for the transmission of the disease,” Sharrelle Barber, an assistant research professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Drexel University, told the Times. “It’s not biological. It’s really these existing structural inequalities that are going to shape the racial inequalities in this pandemic.”

Now, Henson is seeking to change this by offering support in any way possible to the Black communities that are disproportionately suffering from the pandemic. Virtual therapy services are set to begin on April 15th.

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With the bodies of coronavirus victims threatening to overwhelm New York City’s hospitals and morgues, preparations have begun for the “temporary interment” of caskets in trenches in local parks, NYC Council Health Committee chair Mark Levine announced in a tweet on Monday.

“Soon we’ll start ‘temporary interment.’ This likely will be done by using a NYC park for burials (yes you read that right),” Levine wrote. “It will be done in a dignified, orderly–and temporary–manner. But it will be tough for NYers to take.”

The temporary burials are part of a contingency plan that is being put into place as the city’s healthcare system is “being pushed to the limit.” This is happening in an effort to keep up with a growing number of coronavirus casualties, Levine wrote, with the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) struggling daily to keep up with what he described as “the equivalent of an ongoing 9/11.”

It’s not just deaths in hospitals which are up. On an average day before this crisis there were 20-25 deaths at home in NYC. Now in the midst of this pandemic the number is 200-215. *Every day*. 5/

— Mark D. Levine (@MarkLevineNYC) April 6, 2020

To cope with the sheer volume of deaths, the city has sent some 80 refrigerated trailers to local hospitals, each of which has the capacity to house 100 bodies, according to Levine’s thread. But, now those trailers are mostly full too, and some hospitals have had to adopt a second or even third trailer in order to accommodate the dead.

According to the New York Times, under normal circumstances, an average of about 158 people die every day in New York City from a multitude of causes; currently, health systems are seeing that number of deaths each day from the coronavirus alone. This could result in sometimes double or triple the number of deaths and bodies to be accounted for. The result has been a bottleneck of bodies across the city’s systems that hospitals, funeral homes, and cemeteries have struggled to keep up with.

“When you overwhelm the health system, you also overwhelm the death system,” Patrick J. Kearns, a funeral director in Queens, told the Times.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has repeatedly appealed to the federal government for help in recent weeks as the state has exploded into what experts have deemed the “epicenter” of the COVID-19 pandemic. As of April 6, there had been over 122,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus in New York, and more than 4,000 deaths as a result of the virus. As the outbreak has worsened, both Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio have warned that overloaded hospitals and a critical shortage of vital emergency equipment, including ventilators, could exacerbate a crisis that has already become dire.

New York City has had a contingency plan in place for a pandemic-like mass death event since at least 2008, when the city published a 93-page document titled “Pandemic Influenza Surge Plan for In- and Out-of-Hospital Deaths,” that envisioned what would happen if 50,000 people were to die from a single outbreak over the course of just two months.

Sending in the refrigerated mobile units marked the commencement of “Tier One” of the plan, and the city has seemingly made preparations for Tier Two, which involves commissioning prisoners from Rikers Island to help dig mass graves for the dead on Hart Island in the Bronx. The final phase of the plan — “temporary interment” — is the one being described by Levine on Twitter.

“Ten bodies in caskets are placed lengthwise in a long narrow section in the ground,” the plan reads, according to the New York Times. “The foot end of one casket is placed in close proximity to the head end of the next.”

After Levine’s comments, Freddi Goldstein, mayor de Blasio’s press secretary, said that temporary interment would not actually happen in parks, but it is being considered.

We are NOT currently planning to use local parks as burial grounds. We are exploring using Hart Island for temporary burials, if the need grows. https://t.co/LfgGjULjh8

— Freddi Goldstein (@FreddiGoldstein) April 6, 2020

Levine said that city officials were going to need to prepare for makeshift burial plots, but stressed that the plan would not have to be implemented if the death rate dropped significantly enough. The councilman’s office did not immediately return requests for comment about which city parks would be impacted if the “temporary interments” were to take place.

“As New York City continues to appeal to the nation for help, we need to ask not just for doctors and nurses and respiratory therapists. We also need mortuary affairs staff. This is tough to talk about and maybe tough to ask for. But we have no choice. The stakes are too high,” he wrote. Levine later clarified the measures that will be taken and when, saying, “This is a contingency NYC is preparing for BUT if the death rate drops enough it will not be necessary.”

Refinery29 reached out to Mark Levine for comment. We will update this story when we know more.

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Over the weekend, First Lady Melania Trump urged Americans to continue to follow the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in order to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.

“As the weekend approaches I ask that everyone take social distancing & wearing a mask/face covering seriously,” the First Lady wrote in a tweet. “#COVID19 is a virus that can spread to anyone — we can stop this together.”

The advice comes on the heels of updated guidance from multiple agencies, including the CDC, on the importance of wearing “non-medical cloth” protective face coverings in public — something that the government had initially brushed off as inessential as rampant price gouging and a national shortage of vital medical equipment, including face masks, had threatened to overwhelm healthcare providers that were already desperately in need of supplies. 

Now, it seems Melania is making it her mission to get messaging out about face masks, specifically, with multiple calls to action to Americans on how to protect themselves as infections are skyrocketing across the country.

As the weekend approaches I ask that everyone take social distancing & wearing a mask/face covering seriously. #COVID19 is a virus that can spread to anyone – we can stop this together.

— Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) April 3, 2020

But even as Melania cautioned about the seriousness of heeding the CDC’s recommendations, and as recently published medical literature suggests that wearing a face mask can in fact help to decrease the rate of the virus’ transmission, her husband, President Donald Trump, said that he doesn’t plan on wearing a face mask anytime soon.

“I don’t think I’m going to be doing it,” the president said during a Friday press conference. “Wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens — I just don’t see it.” Trump touted that he was glad his wife was taking action in the wake of the pandemic, but he himself would not be following those same guidelines.

“With the masks, it is going to be really a voluntary thing,” he added. “You can do it. You don’t have to do it. I am choosing not to do it. But some people may want to do it, and that’s OK. It may be good. Probably will — they’re making a recommendation. It’s only a recommendation, it’s voluntary.”

The mixed messaging is just the latest example of Trump flouting the advice of his own federal agencies with regards to how to best protect against the coronavirus. During a press briefing on March 13, the president could be seen shaking hands, clapping speakers on the back and fumbling with the podium microphone that many others had just spoken into — mere days after it had been confirmed that he had recently been exposed to at least one person who had tested positive for the virus. 

The disregard for the CDC’s recommendations also comes as Trump has regularly downplayed the severity of the coronavirus in the United States, even as its death toll has soared in recent weeks. After initially claiming that the virus was “…one person coming in from China,” and insisting that the White House had the outbreak “totally under control,” Trump eventually retooled his approach, insisting that the media was using the outbreak as a tool to attack his presidency and ignoring the successes of his administration.

Now, it seems the Melania — who has stayed relatively silent, with the exception of cancelling the White House’s coveted Easter egg roll this year — is taking on the responsibility of effective messaging and following CDC guidelines, whether or not her husband is willing to do the same.

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During a press conference convened to address the ongoing coronavirus pandemic on Sunday, President Donald Trump seemed to imply that the dire shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) currently facing medical professionals in New York’s beleaguered hospitals has been caused by the doctors themselves hoarding supplies.

“Something is going on, and you ought to look into it as reporters. Where are the masks going?” Trump asked journalists during the briefing. “Are they going out the back door? How do you go from 10,000 to 300,000? I just don’t see, from a practical standpoint, how that’s possible…”

As of March 30, more than 150,000 Americans have been diagnosed with COVID-19 — the sometimes-deadly respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus. New York has become what experts have labeled an “epicenter” of the pandemic, beset by over 66,000 confirmed cases and 1,200 deaths as a result of the virus thus far. The exponential rate of new infections has overwhelmed New York City’s health system and created a shortage of critical health supplies like masks and ventilators, with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo recently announcing that the worst of the crisis has yet to come.

But in spite of the dire prognoses and obvious strain the virus has put on hospitals’ supply caches, Trump continued to question whether or not there was foul play involved in the masks’ disappearances. “That statement was made that they’ve been delivering for years, 10 to 20,000 masks,” he continued. “Okay, it’s a New York hospital. Very — it’s packed all the time. How do you go from 10 to 20, to 300,000? 10 to 20,000 masks to 300,000?”

“I don’t think it’s hoarding … I think maybe it’s worse than hoarding,” he clarified. In recent weeks, the shortage has mobilized an army of amateur tailors dedicated to hand-sewing the masks, gloves and gowns that first responders so desperately need in order to keep themselves safe from the virus. And as the president attempts to foist the blame on hospitals for their own dearth of supplies amid a worsening pandemic, professionals now believe that the White House is to blame for the conditions that allowed such a shortage of equipment in the first place.

In a joint letter released on March 21, the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, and the American Nurses Association called upon the president to utilize the Defense Production Act to “increase the domestic production of medical supplies and equipment” for hospitals. And at the outset of the crisis, many health experts also pointed to the administration’s inability to make COVID-19 test kits widely available, as well as the decision to fire the leadership of National Security Council’s pandemic response team in the spring of 2018, as major failings. 

Even Dr. Anthony Fauci, the usually measured director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has previously admitted that the Trump administration was unprepared to meet the moment in terms of its coronavirus response.

“The system is not really geared to what we need right now,” Fauci said during a House hearing about coronavirus test kits on March 12. “That is a failing. Let’s admit it.”

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Nearly 100 Amazon workers in Staten Island will walk off the job on Monday to protest what they say is management’s failure to protect employees from the novel coronavirus, COVID-19.

As workers struggle to meet soaring online shopping and delivery demands in the wake of the virus’ spread, employees at Amazon’s Staten Island facility claim that management failed to communicate effectively after one of their colleagues recently tested positive for the virus, and is continuing to take inadequate precautions to ensure the remaining workers’ safety.

Chris Smalls, a warehouse management assistant and a lead organizer of the strike, told CNBC that workers are demanding that the Staten Island facility be shut down and sanitized in light of the positive diagnosis, and that workers receive paid time off while the deep clean occurs. “Since the building won’t close by itself, we’re going to have to force [Amazon’s] hand,” Smalls said. “We will not return until the building gets sanitized.”

The strike comes on the heels of other worker-led actions across the country aimed at getting employers to codify coronavirus-related protections. The same day that Amazon workers in Staten Island were set to walk off the job, workers affiliated with the grocery ordering startup Instacart said they also planned to strike over safety concerns. And on March 31, workers at Whole Foods — the national grocery store chain owned by Amazon — are set to participate in a “mass sick out,” calling on management to provide guaranteed paid leave to all employees in self-quarantine, reinstate health coverage for part-time and seasonal workers, and shut down any location where a worker tests positive for COVID-19, among other demands.

Amazon employs more than 800,000 nationwide, with workers in at least 11 different warehouses recently testing positive for coronavirus. As the outbreak has worsened, Amazon has made efforts to balance increased ecommerce demands with worker safety, including relaxing rules regarding cell phones on the warehouse floor in case employees need to contact family members in the event of an emergency and installing new signs at some facilities mandating that workers not stand less than three feet apart. 

But aside from minor adjustments, including a recent shutdown at a Kentucky returns facility, workers say Amazon’s inadequate response has left them susceptible to infection as they work long hours to meet increased demands. 

“All employers need to prioritize the health and safety of their workforce at this time,” Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, said in a statement. “Unfortunately, Amazon appears to be maximizing its enormous profits even over its employees’ safety — and that is unacceptable.” 

Even as beleaguered workers head to the picket line, it goes without saying that consumers have most of the power here: As with the Amazon Prime Day boycotts in 2019, customers now have the ability to influence decisions made all the way up the chain of command at Amazon by choosing to spend their dollars elsewhere until working conditions for warehouse employees are improved. 

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Convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein is the latest high-profile figure to test positive for coronavirus, the New York state corrections officers union told Reuters on Sunday.

Following his March 11 hearing, where he was sentenced to 23 years in prison for rape, the former movie mogul had been held at New York City’s Rikers Island jail before being transferred to Wende Correctional Facility, a state prison. According to Michael Powers, president of the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, Weinstein has been placed in isolation following his diagnosis, and added that three state corrections officers also tested positive after coming into contact with infected individuals.

Criminal justice advocates in New York and across the country have been urging elected officials to take emergency actions aimed at protecting the incarcerated, including the immediate release of particularly vulnerable inmates and those with little time remaining on their sentences. 

“Fewer people in the jails will save lives and minimize transmission among people in custody as well as staff,” Jacqueline Sherman, the interim chair of the board of Correctional Health Services in New York, wrote in a letter to the city’s criminal justice leaders last week. “Failure to drastically reduce the jail population threatens to overwhelm the City jails’ healthcare system as well its basic operations.”

According to the letter, thirty eight people in New York City’s jail system have tested positive for COVID-19 thus far, including at the Rikers facility, where Weinstein was being held. An additional 58 people are being monitored for the virus in quarantine units. 

The rapid spread of the coronavirus poses a potentially devastating risk to incarcerated populations, many of whom face structural barriers to deploying the mitigation tactics that public health officials most urgently advocate for: social distancing, proper hygienic practice and sanitized living conditions. Last week, the Cuyahoga County Court system in Ohio opted to release more than 200 low-risk, non-violent incarcerated individuals in anticipation of the worsening outbreak, and criminal justice advocates say facilities across the nation will need to follow suit in order to minimize the outbreak’s death toll.

Imran Ansari, one of Weinstein’s lawyers, said that his client’s documented ailments — he was admitted to Bellevue Hospital in New York recently for heart problems, high blood pressure and diabetes, all factors that increase the risk of coronavirus exposure — are all reason to carefully monitor his COVID-19 diagnosis.

“Given Mr. Weinstein’s state of health, we are of course concerned, if this is the case, and we are vigilantly monitoring the situation,” Ansari said.

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Every four years, the Democratic National Convention formally appoints a party nominee to take on a Republican candidate in the presidential race — usually, with little fanfare. The process that occurs after Super Tuesday results is generally rote, with minimal drama that American political spectators have come to crave from their electoral politics. As results show a divided Democratic party, the specter of a “brokered convention” or “contested convention,” which is so routinely raised, might soon become a reality. The process that happens if no candidate receives enough delegates or a clear majority to become the party’s nominee is making this round of primary elections spicier than ever.

But let’s back up for a second: What exactly is a brokered convention, and to what extent should we be bracing for one in 2020? A brokered convention is what happens when a candidate fails to win a majority of delegates in the first round of voting. Similarly, a contested convention is what happens when a candidate secures the lead in voting but not necessarily the nomination after the first ballot, as reported by the New York Times.

According to U.S. primary rules, a given candidate must secure more than half of the available pledged delegates — local officials who vow to represent the candidate at the party’s convention — in order to become the presumptive nominee. In order to win the Democratic party’s nomination in 2020, that means a candidate will need to win 1,991 delegates. Prior to the Super Tuesday vote, only 145 delegates have been allocated, with Sanders at 56 and former Vice President Joe Biden at 48, which should give you a good idea of just how many pledged delegates are still up for grabs at this early stage of the race.

But the prospect of a brokered convention largely hinges on what happens if no one clears that 1,991 benchmark. If one candidate is just below the threshold, they will likely call for the party to unify under one banner rather than contest the nomination. But if two candidates are jockeying for the top spot and no one winner seems clear, chaos will ensue.

In a brokered convention scenario, a big responsibility falls to what’s known as “superdelegates” — a group of party leaders and elected officials from each state who can support any candidate they choose at the convention, and are not bound by the results of any one primary. For context, there hasn’t been a brokered convention scenario for Democrats since 1932, the year Franklin D. Roosevelt went on to win the general election.

This year, the possibility of a brokered convention seems less like political fan fiction and more likely a plausible reality. While Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has emerged as the solid frontrunner following the first rounds nominating contests (with the exception of Biden’s South Carolina win), the still-crowded Democratic field could pose a threat to his potential to amass delegates during the coveted Super Tuesday voting spree, where big-delegate states like California and Texas are up for grabs. And, even if Sanders does emerge victorious, there are superdelegates chomping at the bit to deny him the nomination, all but certainly teeing up a messier-than-usual showdown on the convention floor in Milwaukee come July.

The plausibility of this scenario will become much more clear after the results of Super Tuesday are announced, and without one candidate commanding a decisive lead, anything will still be possible. If recent American history has proven anything, it’s that political outcomes have become increasingly impossible to predict, so grab a snack and settle in for what’s sure to be a wild summer in Milwaukee.

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After a historic outing as the first gay man to helm a mainstream presidential campaign — one which included an unexpected victory in the Iowa caucus — former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg announced on Sunday night that he had made the “difficult decision” to suspend his candidacy.

Despite the end of his own 2020 run, Buttigieg concluded his remarks with a vow to “do everything in my power to ensure that we have a new Democratic president come January.” And by Monday morning, it seemed possible that Buttigieg’s base had come up with a definitive, if surprising, answer to the question of who that nominee should be.

Just hours after Buttigieg had exited the race, the Twitter hashtag #PetetoBernie — a reference to Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who currently leads the Democratic field — had racked up more than 21,000 tweets, compared to just 3,600 tweets under the hashtag counterpart for former Vice President Joe Biden, #PetetoBiden.

I sound like a broken record at this point but seriously we need to all get around the only candidate that has a clear path towards beating Trump.

I have made the switch. I supported Biden, Pete, & Warren but I know what is at stake, let’s unify around Bernie.#PeteToBernie

— Trinity🌹🐝 (@LeftyTrinity) March 2, 2020

The differences between Sanders’ and Buttigieg’s political programs, it’s worth noting, are striking: Sanders supports a single-payer, government subsidized health care program, while Buttigieg has said that the program is too radical and said that individuals who like their private insurance should be entitled to keep it. The candidates also clashed over campaign donations, with Sanders criticizing Buttigieg for his big-donor strategy and accusing the former McKinsey analyst of being too friendly to Wall Street.

But despite the wide gulf ideological between the two candidates, some on Twitter seemed to concede that Sanders appeared best prepared to beat the incumbent President Donald Trump in a general election in the fall. Others argued that without an openly gay candidate to support, the next best choice would be Sanders, a longtime champion of the LGBTQ community.

I was all set to vote for Pete on Tuesday, #ThankYouPete. But, I have had to rethink my vote in the final moments before this election. And, I can see no way forward that beats Trump except @BernieSanders. My cervix is now a #BernieBro! #SuperTuesday #PeteToBernie

— Guardian Jenny 🐳 🌈 (@BoycottJapan) March 2, 2020

Although Twitter endorsements are more or less anecdotal evidence, poll data supports the idea that Buttigieg supporters might be flocking to the Sanders camp. According to a Morning Consult poll conducted from February 23 – 27, some 21 percent of Buttigieg supporters named Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders as their second choice in the Democratic primary, narrowly beating out the 19 percent of supporters who said they would support former Vice President Joe Biden and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, respectively, and the 17 percent who said they would back former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The spread would pretty neatly amount to a roughly two point bump for each candidate, meaning that his decision to exit the primary will do little to meaningfully change the landscape of the race.

The Bernie campaign is about inclusion. This is a multigenerational & multiracial coalition of working class people, anybody who wants to join the fight can.

I was a Hillary supporter in 2016 and the Bernie community welcomed me with open arms. Let’s win this.#PeteToBernie

— Dy🌹✊🏿 (@DynastyClaire) March 2, 2020

With Super Tuesday poised to reshape the Democratic field once again on March 3, it remains to be seen whether would-be Buttigieg supporters will rally behind Sanders or pepper their support through the more centrist pack of candidates that still remain afield.

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On Monday, Harvey Weinstein was found guilty of 1st-degree criminal sexual acts and 3rd-degree rape in New York. The verdict comes after a protracted criminal trial in which six women had testified against the disgraced Hollywood film producer on a total of five felony charges. Although he was convicted on two counts, the former movie mogul was also acquitted on three other, more serious charges.

Following the announcement of the verdicts, Weinstein was remanded into custody until a sentencing hearing scheduled for March 11, where the charges he was convicted of could land him up to 25 years in prison.

Separate from the criminal charges he faced in court, Weinstein had been accused of sexual misconduct in some form by at least 100 women, spurring the #MeToo movement in the fall of 2017 that forced Hollywood to reckon with a gendered power imbalance and a culture of rampant sexual harassment. In the wake of the news, many of his accusers — and allies to survivors — reacted on social media to the news of Weinstein’s conviction, though he was not found guilty on all charges.

The complexities of each charge are vast, and involved harrowing testimonies from women who accused Harvey Weinstein of rape and sexual assault. Below, we’ve detailed every charge against Weinstein, what they mean, and what each verdict was.

Count 1: Predatory sexual assault

Predatory sexual assault charges are handed down in combination with charges of rape or criminal sexual act in the first degree. Although six women testified before the jury, the statute of limitations allowed for only five official charges for Weinstein stemming from accusations made by two women in particular: Miriam Haley and Jessica Mann. For each of the two more serious charges of predatory sexual assault that Weinstein faced, a third woman, former Sopranos actress Annabella Sciorra, also took the stand to help prosecutors establish that Weinstein had committed prior sex crimes in the same vein. This amounted to the charge of predatory sexual assault, which Weinstein was not held accountable for in the final verdict.

Verdict: Not Guilty.

Charge 2: Criminal sexual act in the first degree

Weinstein was found guilty of criminal sexual acts in the first degree, which is levied when a person forces a victim to engage in either oral or anal sexual conduct. The charges stemmed from accusations made by TV and film production assistant Miriam Haley, who had testified that Weinstein forced her to perform oral sex on him at his New York City apartment in 2006. “I rejected him, but he insisted,” Haley told jurors. “Every time I tried to get off the bed, he would push me back and hold me down. He pushed me down, he held me down by my arms. At that point, I started realizing what was actually happening.”

Verdict: Guilty.

Charge 3: Predatory sexual assault

Weinstein was also found not guilty on a second count of predatory sexual assault made by former actress Jessica Mann. When she took the stand to address jurors for the first time on February 3, Mann collapsed into tears and began hyperventilating before being escorted from the New York City courtroom. Mann’s experience had made for a thorny case for prosecutors, as her relationship with Weinstein had reportedly involved consensual sex separate from the rape allegations she had made against him.

Verdict: Not Guilty.

Charge 4: Rape in the first degree

Weinstein was also cleared on the more serious charge of rape in the first degree on Monday — a count that would have carried with it a potential maximum sentence of 25 years in prison. Rape in the first degree is established when a person engages in intercourse with another person by “forcible compulsion” through the use of physical force or threats. The charge was brought on by Weinstein’s encounter with Jessica Mann, as detailed above.

Verdict: Not Guilty.

Charge 5: Rape in the third degree

On a separate charge of rape in the third degree — which is established when a person engages in sexual intercourse without first receiving proper consent — Weinstein was found guilty. This charge was also brought on by Jessica Mann, and the verdict will require him to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

Verdict: Guilty.

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