Whom Joe Biden picks for vice president matters less than

that he picks her soon

An apparent Democratic nominee who can't campaign also

can't play waiting games when it comes to selecting a running mate.

April 10, 2020, 4:30 AM EDT

"Joe Biden is now the apparent Democratic nominee for president of the United States, and he finally can turn his full attention to the general election and defeating Donald Trump — but time isn't on his side.

The situation our country is facing because of the coronavirus is atypical; most Americans are on week four of staying at home, and there appears to be no end in sight to the restrictions caused by the pandemic. Unemployment is at an unbelievable high, infection rates continue to rise and the networks carry the president's news conferences nearly every day.

Meanwhile, the apparent Democratic nominee can't even give a speech in front of cheering supporters to celebrate his clear path to the nomination."

moar:

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/whom-joe-biden-picks-vice-president-matters-less-he-picks-ncna1180656

Joe Biden Won The Primary. Now He's Trying To Win Over

Progressive Groups

April 10, 2020 5:00 AM ET

"A day after Bernie Sanders dropped out of the presidential race, Joe Biden, now the presumptive Democratic nominee, made an overture to progressives.

On Thursday he rolled out two new policy proposals:

Lower the age of Medicare eligibility from 65 to 60;

and forgive student debt for low-income and middle-class families who attended public colleges and universities and some private institutions.

"Senator Sanders and his supporters can take pride in their work in laying the groundwork for these ideas, and I'm proud to adopt them as part of my campaign at this critical moment in responding to the coronavirus crisis," Biden said in a statement announcing his plans. And the day before, when Sanders suspended his campaign, Biden put out a 700-word statement praising the Vermont senator as a "powerful voice" whose movement "changed the dialogue in America.""

moar:

https://www.npr.org/2020/04/10/830853819/joe-biden-won-the-primary-now-hes-trying-to-win-over-progressive-groups

Sweden Resorts To Storing Bodies At Ice-Rinks As

COVID-19 Deaths Soar

Fri, 04/10/2020 - 03:45

"On Thursday, Sweden reported another rise in the daily death rate, with the virus now killing at least 100 people for the second day in a row, raising the total number of dead to 792. Total cases in the country now exceed 9,100, with the hospital system in Stockholm overwhelmed with patients and dead bodies.

Swedish authorities have resorted to storing bodies in "refrigerated shipping containers, ice rinks, and canteen fridges," reported RT News.

The massive influx of virus-related deaths has overflowed morgues with bodies, and crematoriums cannot keep up.

Hospital systems in Gothenburg and Stockholm are renting out ice rinks, refrigerated containers, and cold storage facilities to house bodies in April.

"The big bottleneck is our mortuary that is not designed for such a large city that we are in. It is then important for relatives to arrange the funerals so that the deceased become coffin-bound and thus can come over to the cemetery administration," said Katarina Evenseth, the funeral director in Gothenburg.

Evenseth said the extra storage facilities for the bodies are "working great" to handle the overflow. As for the ice rinks, she noted the coffins are placed right on the ice.

Claes Ruth of Karolinska University Laboratory said: "all hospitals" in the country are "strained" at the moment as virus cases and deaths surge.

Sweden is not the only country that has run out of room to store bodies. The UK has transformed a military hanger into an icebox in Oxfordshire to house the dead"

moar:

https://www.zerohedge.com/health/sweden-resorts-storing-bodies-ice-rinks-covid-19-deaths-soar

Pope Francis: Pandemic Could Be 'Nature's Revenge'

For Ignoring Climate Change

Fri, 04/10/2020 - 06:30

"Perhaps topping all other kooky 'more progressive than thou' statements of the past years, Pope Francis this week said something that sounds like he's been quoted in an Onion or Babylon Bee headline, as if he's in competition for hyperbolic absurdity with Greta Thunberg.

Instead it's CNN, and it's all too real — Francis actually implied in new statements on the coronavirus pandemic that it's nature's revenge for people ignoring climate change.

Pope Francis has said the coronavirus pandemic is one of "nature's responses" to humans ignoring the current ecological crisis, CNN reports.

The remarks were cited in a Wednesday interview with The Tablet and Commonwealth magazines, wherein the pope further described the crisis as an opportunity for mankind to "slow down the rate of production and consumption".

"We did not respond to the partial catastrophes. Who now speaks of the fires in Australia, or remembers that 18 months ago a boat could cross the North Pole because the glaciers had all melted? Who speaks now of the floods?" the Pope said.

"I don't know if these are the revenge of nature, but they are certainly nature's responses," he added, strongly suggesting that the ongoing deadly COVID-19 outbreak could be part of nature's 'response' - given the pandemic was the focus of the interview.

“There is an expression in Spanish: ‘God always forgives, we forgive sometimes, but nature never forgives,'” the pope said in an interview published Wednesday in The Tablet, a United Kingdom-based Catholic weekly.

He actually said something similar in an interview with a Spanish journalist over two weeks ago, saying at that time when pressed about climate change and coronavirus: “Fires, earthquakes… nature is throwing a tantrum so that we will take care of her.”"

moar:

https://www.zerohedge.com/health/pope-francis-suggests-pandemic-natures-revenge-ignoring-climate-change