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Trump: Biden ‘Knew Everything About’ Flynn Unmasking

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President Donald Trump points to a question as he speaks about the coronavirus during a press briefing in the Rose Garden of the White House, Monday, May 11, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

By Eric Mack  (NEWSMAX)

President Donald Trump said his presumptive 2020 election opponent Joe Biden was not only caught in a misstatement on Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, but the former vice president “knew everything about” Flynn’s unmasking.

In fact, Biden’s name was the last of several Obama officials who were involved in unmasking Flynn’s name in the final days before Trump took office in January 2017.

“The unmasking is a massive thing,” Trump told reporters Wednesday.

He said he knows nothing about anything,” Trump added about Biden, who – Trump told Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo in an interview to air Thursday morning – “knew everything about it.”

“This was all Obama; this was all Biden,” Trump said in clips aired early Wednesday night on Fox News. “These people were corrupt. The whole thing was corrupt. And we caught them.”

Biden and former FBI Director James Comey are among the Obama administration officials who sought to “unmask” Flynn’s appearance in a FISA-tapped phone call with a Russian ambassador during the course of the 2016 presidential transition.

The revelation was contained in a document delivered from acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell to the Justice Department and sent to Republican senators by Grenell.

Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., on Wednesday distributed the list of Obama officials involved in the unmasking of Flynn.

Next Time You Shop For Meat Watch This Shocking Video

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The last time The Jewish Voice posted this video from CBC- Canadian Public Broadcasting on Facebook it circulated to 60 million social media users, as this information everyone is interested in.

This is a trick of the trade revealed from supermarket workers . It is even more alarming now !   Because of the pandemic many shoppers  are using grocery delivery services & are not actually picking meat off the shelves themselves . Spread this video to people who shop for a living for apps such as instacart and others.

It is an eye opener

 

Faxes and email: Old Technology Slows COVID-19 Response

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By FRANK BAJAK (AP)

On April 1, a researcher at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention emailed Nevada public health counterparts for lab reports on two travelers who had tested positive for the coronavirus. She asked Nevada to send those records via a secure network or a “password protected encrypted file” to protect the travelers’ privacy.

The Nevada response: Can we just fax them over?

You’d hardly know the U.S. invented the internet by the way its public health workers are collecting vital pandemic data. While health-care industry record-keeping is now mostly electronic, cash-strapped state and local health departments still rely heavily on faxes, email and spreadsheets to gather infectious disease data and share it with federal authorities.

This data dysfunction is hamstringing the nation’s coronavirus response by, among other things, slowing the tracing of people potentially exposed to the virus. In response, the Trump administration set up a parallel reporting system run by the Silicon Valley data-wrangling firm Palantir. Duplicating many data requests, it has placed new burdens on front-line workers at hospitals, labs and other health care centers who already report case and testing data to public health agencies.

There’s little evidence so far that the Palantir system has measurably improved federal or state response to COVID-19.

Emails exchanged between the CDC and Nevada officials in March and early April, obtained by The Associated Press in a public records request, illustrate the scope of the problem. It sometimes takes multiple days to track down such basic information as patient addresses and phone numbers. One disease detective consults Google to fill a gap. Data vital to case investigations such as patient travel and medical histories is missing.

None of this is news to the CDC or other health experts. “We are woefully behind,” the CDC’s No. 2 official, Anne Schuchat, wrote in a September report on public health data technology. She likened the state of U.S. public health technology to “puttering along the data superhighway in our Model T Ford.”

This information technology gap might seem puzzling given that most hospitals and other health care providers have long since ditched paper files for electronic health records. Inside the industry, they’re easily shared, often automatically.

But data collection for infectious-disease reports is another story, particularly in comparison to other industrialized nations. Countries like Germany, Britain and South Korea — and U.S. states such as New York and Colorado — are able to populate online dashboards far richer in real-time data and analysis. In Germany, a map populated with public data gathered by an emergency-care doctors’ association even shows hospital bed availability.

In the U.S., many hospitals and doctors are often failing to report detailed clinical data on coronavirus cases, largely because it would have to be manually extracted from electronic records, then sent by fax or email, said Johns Hopkins epidemiologist Jennifer Nuzzo.

It’s not unusual for public health workers to have to track patients down on social media, use the phone book or scavenge through other public-health databases that may have that information, said Rachelle Boulton, the Utah health department official responsible for epidemiological reporting. Even when hospitals and labs report that information electronically, it’s often incomplete.

Deficiencies in CDC collection have been especially glaring.

In 75% of COVID-19 cases compiled in April, data on the race and ethnicity of victims was missing. A report on children affected by the virus only had symptom data for 9%of laboratory-confirmed cases for which age was known. A study on virus-stricken U.S. health care workers could not tally the number affected because the applicable boxes were only checked on 16% of received case forms. In another study, the CDC only had data on preexisting conditions — risk factors such as diabetes, heart and respiratory disease — for 6% of reported cases.

Missing from daily indicators that CDC makes public is data such as nationwide hospitalizations over the previous 24 hours and numbers of tests ordered and completed — information vital to guiding the federal response, said Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute.

“The CDC during this entire pandemic has been two steps behind the disease,” Jha said.

REINVENTING THE WHEEL

Instead of accelerating existing efforts to modernize U.S. disease reporting, the White House asked Palantir, whose founder Peter Thiel is a major backer of President Donald Trump, to hastily build out a data collection platform called HHS Protect. It has not gone well.

On March 29, Vice President Mike Pence, who chairs the task force, sent a letter asking 4,700 hospitals to collect daily numbers on virus test results, patient loads and hospital bed and intensive care-unit capacity. That information, the letter said, should be compiled into spreadsheets and emailed to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which would feed it into the $25 million Palantir system.

On April 10, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar added more reporting requirements for hospitals.

Those mandates sparked a backlash among stressed hospitals already reporting data to state and local health departments. Producing additional cumbersome spreadsheets for the federal government “is just not sustainable,” said Janet Hamilton, executive director of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists.

HHS Protect now comprises more than 200 datasets, including reporting from nearly three-quarters of the roughly 8,000 U.S. hospitals, according to Katie McKeogh, an HHS press officer. It includes supply-chain data from industry, test results from labs and state policy actions.

But due to limited government transparency, it’s not clear how accurate or helpful HHS Protect has been. Asked for examples of its usefulness, McKeogh mentioned only one: White House task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx receives a nightly report based on what the system gathers that provides “a common (nationwide) operating picture of cases at a county level.”

”We will continue to work to improve upon the common operating picture,” McKeogh said when asked about holes in HHS data collection. Neither HHS nor the CDC would provide officials to answer questions about HHS Protect; Palantir declined to discuss it on the record.

FIXING THE PROBLEM

Farzad Mostashari, who a decade ago oversaw the federal effort to modernize paper-based medical records, said it would be far more efficient to fix existing public-health data systems than to create a parallel system like HHS Protect.

“We have a lot of the pieces in place,” Mostashari said. A public-private partnership called digitalbridge.us is central to that effort. Pilot projects that automate infectious disease case reporting were expanded in late January. Overall, 252,000 COVID case reports have been generated so far, said CDC spokesman Benjamin N. Haynes. In December, Congress appropriated $50 million for grants to expand the effort, which is already active in Utah, New York, California, Texas and Michigan.

Going forward, the CDC is evaluating how to spend $500 million from March’s huge pandemic relief package to upgrade health care information technology.

In the meantime, public-health officers are still doing things the hard way. Up to half the lab reports submitted for public health case investigations lack patient addresses or ZIP codes, according to a May 1 Duke University white paper co-authored by Mostashari.

“We’re losing days trying to go back and collect that information,” said Hamilton of the epidemiologists’ council. “And then we’re reaching out to hospitals or physicians’ offices that, quite frankly, are saying ‘I’m too busy to tell you that.’”

NY Update: Deaths and Hospitalizations Continue to Drop, 4th Upstate Region to Open

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Governor Andrew Cuomo delivers daily briefing on the ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic.

Mr. Cuomo reported 166 new virus-related deaths, the third straight day the figure was under 200.

(The press conference is at the bottom of this page)

The number of new hospitalizations statewide has also continued to stay at the levels that preceded Mr. Cuomo’s statewide stay-at-home orders. The governor reported 416 new virus-related hospitalizations and 2,176 new confirmed cases.

A fourth region of upstate New York has now met the criteria to start gradually reopening, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Wednesday.

The North Country, the sparsely populated northern region of the state that includes the Adirondack Mountains, has now achieved the seven benchmarks required to partially reopen construction, manufacturing and curbside retail by Friday.

NY state announced : Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that as of today, the North Country has met all seven metrics required to begin phase one of the state’s regional phased reopening plan when NYS on PAUSE orders expire on May 15th, joining the Finger Lakes, Southern Tier and Mohawk Valley Regions. If the trend continues, these four regions can begin opening businesses for phase one, which includes construction; manufacturing and wholesale supply chain; retail for curbside pickup and drop-off or in-store pickup; and agriculture, forestry and fishing. The Central New York region has met six of the seven metrics and could potentially be ready at the end of the week. A guide to the state’s “NY Forward Reopening” Plan is available here. The state’s regional monitoring dashboard is available here.

The Governor also announced the results of the state’s antibody testing survey of 2,750 members of the New York State Police Show 3.1 percent of the members have COVID-19 antibodies. Additionally, results of the state’s antibody testing survey of approximately 3,000 members of the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision show 7.5 percent of members have COVID-19 antibodies. These results are compared to 12.3 percent of the general population in Upstate New York that tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies

As the numbers continue to decline and we are coming down the other side of the mountain, a lot of attention is now on reopening,” Governor Cuomo said. “We’re doing something in this state that no other state is doing – we are having a transparent discussion about the reopening operations because it only works if people understand it and are part of it. New Yorkers will know exactly what is happening in their region and in their county on a daily basis, and the state will continue to monitor these metrics to determine when regions are ready to reopen and if we need to adjust the reopening plans. Four regions have now met all seven metrics required to begin reopening, and we will continue to keep New Yorkers informed as this process goes forward.”

NY Orthodox Jews Donating 50% of Blood To help Treat COVID-19 Patients

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New York Orthodox Jews make up half of all US plasma donors volunteering blood to help treat COVID-19 patients, according to a medical expert, reported by the NY Times.

The NY Times reported that  public health data suggests the Orthodox and Hasidic community may have been affected at a rate that exceeds other ethnic and religious groups, with community estimates placing the number of dead in the hundreds, including beloved religious leaders.

Dr. Michael Joyner of the Mayo Clinic, who is running a study on the effects of plasma to treat the virus, said more than 5,000 patients across the US have been given plasma treatment so far and, when it comes to donors, ‘by far the largest group is our Orthodox friends in New York City.’

‘I would be shocked if they were less than half the total,’ Joyner told the  New York Times.

The NY Times reported :A number of factors lie behind the outsize role of the Orthodox plasma drive, according to public health experts and community leaders, including the close ties that bind Orthodox society, a religious commitment to the value of human life and a network of organizers committed to turning something bad into something good” 

Biden, Comey, Brennan Submitted Flynn ‘Unmasking’ Requests

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AP

By Chuck Ross (Daily Caller News Foundation)

 

Former Vice President Joe Biden and the directors of the three main U.S. intelligence agencies submitted so-called “unmasking” requests for information about Michael Flynn contained in highly classified intelligence reports, according to documents released Wednesday.

The documents show that an unmasking request was made in Biden’s name on Jan. 12, 2017. Similar requests were made under the names of James Comey, John Brennan and James Clapper, the former directors of the FBI, CIA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence, respectively.

Denis McDonough, who served as chief of staff to President Obama, also submitted a request on Jan. 5, 2017, the documents show.

Unmasking describes the process whereby high-level U.S. government officials request information regarding American citizens mentioned in classified foreign intelligence reports. It is not illegal to make unmasking requests, but the Flynn case is unique because information about phone calls he had with Russia’s ambassador was leaked to the media during the presidential transition period.

David Ignatius, a Washington Post columnist, mentioned the call in a Jan. 12, 2017, column. (RELATED: Documents Shed Light On Media Leak Central To Michael Flynn Case)

Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson released the list of names on Wednesday. Richard Grenell, the acting director of national intelligence, declassified the information last Thursday, and provided it to the senators this week.

Paul Nakasone, the director of the National Security Agency (NSA) provided the list to Grenell on May 1.

It is not clear whether Biden or others who submitted the unmasking requests saw the information related to Flynn. The document released on Wednesday said that the unmasking requests were made under 16 different government officials’ names for an unspecified number of intelligence reports.

“Below is a list of recipients who may have received Lt. Gen Flynn’s identity in response to a request processed between 8 November 2016 and 31 January 2017 to unmask an identity that had been generically referred to in an NSA foreign intelligence report,” the document stated.

“While the principals are identified below, we cannot confirm they saw the unmasked information.”

he list includes several high-profile Obama administration figures, including Brennan, Clapper and Biden. But also includes lesser known officials at the Treasury Department and State Department. A flurry of requests were submitted in mid-December 2016, the records show.

Republicans have focused on the unmasking issue to try to figure out who leaked information about communications that Flynn had in late December 2016 with Sergey Kislyak, who then served as Russian ambassador to the U.S.

Kislyak contacted Flynn on Dec. 28, 2016, the same day that the Obama administration ordered 35 Russian diplomats to leave the U.S. because of Russian hacking during the presidential campaign.

The records do not settle the question of who made the unmasking request for information from Kislyak’s communications with Flynn.

Comey suggested in testimony to the House Intelligence Committee on March 2, 2017 that someone in the FBI made the request that revealed that Flynn spoke with Kislyak.

Clapper submitted an unmasking request on Dec. 28, 2016, according to the declassified documents. But Clapper suggested in testimony to the House Intelligence panel that the FBI submitted the request regarding the Kislyak phone calls.

“I don’t know the circumstances of the unmasking, you know. That’s a better question to direct to the FBI or the DOJ,” Clapper told the House panel on July 17, 2017.

The declassified records list Comey as the only FBI official to make an unmasking request for Flynn records. That request was submitted on Dec. 15, 2016, two weeks before Flynn spoke with Kislyak.

John Bass, who served as U.S. ambassador to Turkey, submitted a request for Flynn information on Dec. 28, 2016. The next request was not submitted until McDonough, the White House chief of staff, did so on Jan. 5, 2017.

McDonough did not respond to a request for comment. The Biden campaign also did not respond to a request for comment.

Days after Flynn’s contacts with Kislyak, FBI and Justice Department officials began discussing whether Flynn violated the Logan Act, an obscure law that prohibits American citizens from negotiating with foreign governments regarding U.S. government policy.

FBI officials arranged to interview Flynn regarding his contacts with Kislyak. The retired lieutenant general ended up pleading guilty to making false statements to the FBI during that interview, which was conducted at the White House on Jan. 24, 2017.

The Justice Department filed a motion to drop the case against Flynn on May 7 after the discovery of FBI documents related to the Flynn investigation.

One document was an FBI memo dated Jan. 4, 2017 that authorized the closure of a counterintelligence investigation against Flynn. The memo said that the FBI found no evidence that Flynn was working as an agent of Russia. The bureau had investigated Flynn and three other Trump associates for possible Russia ties since August 2016.

Grenell, who also serves as ambassador to Germany, took the list of names to the Justice Department last week asking for the information to be released to the public. Grenell has been behind a recent push to declassify and release documents related to the FBI’s investigation of Trump associates.

He was involved in the process of declassifying footnotes from a Justice Department inspector general’s report on the investigation. Those footnotes showed that the FBI received evidence in 2017 that Russian intelligence operatives might have fed disinformation to Christopher Steele, the author of a dossier that accused the Trump campaign of conspiring with the Kremlin.

Grenell also recently pressured House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff to release 53 transcripts of interviews that the committee conducted as part of its own Russia probe. The transcripts showed that Obama officials such as James Clapper, Susan Rice and Ben Rhodes had not seen evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia by the time they left office.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].

 

NYT Says Reporter Went Too Far in Criticizing Handling of Pandemic

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By Brian Freeman  (NEWSMAX)

The New York Times said that one of its journalists went too far with his harsh criticism of the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus crisis in a television interview, Fox News has reported.

During a conversation with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday, New York Times’ science and health reporter Donald McNeil Jr. blasted President Donald Trump for knowledge on the subject that is not even at “a third-grade level,” said Vice President Mike Pence is a “sycophant,” slammed the “incompetent leadership” at the CDC and called on its director to resign.

A Times spokesperson said McNeil, Jr. “went too far in expressing his personal views. His editors have discussed the issue with him to reiterate that his job is to report the facts and not to offer his own opinions. We are confident that his reporting on science and medicine for The Times has been scrupulously fair and accurate.”

Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple pointed out that McNeil Jr.’s harsh comments appeared to contradict the Times’ own guidelines, which state that “a staff member should not say anything on radio, television or the Internet that could not appear under his or her byline in The Times on its reporters expressing personal views.”

McNeil has worked at The Times for more than 30 years, specializing in covering plagues and pestilences, according to the Business Insider.

The Times has portrayed him as an authoritative voice on the coronavirus and has highlighted him in efforts to gain subscriptions.

Howard Stern Attacks Trump Supporters: ” It’d Be ‘Extremely Patriotic’ of Trump to Resign”

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By Brian Freeman (NEWSMAX)

President Donald Trump should resign from office, radio show host Howard Stern has suggested, the New York Daily News reported on Wednesday.

“I do think it would be extremely patriotic of Donald to say ‘I’m in over my head and I don’t want to be president anymore,’” Stern said during his Sirius XM radio show. “It’d be so patriotic that I’d hug him and then I’d go back to Mar-a-Lago and have a meal with him and feel good about him, because it would be such an easy thing to do.”

Stern, who has harshly criticized Trump’s supporters in recent weeks, continued his contempt of them, saying “The oddity in all of this is the people Trump despises most, love him the most. The people who are voting for Trump for the most part … he wouldn’t even let them in [his] hotel. He’d be disgusted by them. Go to Mar-a-Lago, see if there’s any people who look like you. I’m talking to you in the audience.”

Stern insisted that “I don’t hate Donald. I hate you for voting for him, for not having intelligence.”

Stern hosted Trump on his radio show several times throughout the years and saw him often at social events, according to Fox News.

Last month Stern suggested that Trump’s supporters “take disinfectant” and “drop dead” after the president’s remarks the previous day that injecting disinfectant might possibly help those infected with the coronavirus.

Judge puts off approving US Request to Dismiss Flynn Case

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AP

By ERIC TUCKER (AP)

A federal judge made clear Tuesday that he would not immediately rule on the Justice Department’s decision to dismiss its criminal case against former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn, saying he would instead let outside individuals and groups weigh in with their opinions.

The move suggests U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan is not inclined to automatically rubber-stamp the department’s plan to dismiss the Flynn prosecution.

Flynn pleaded guilty, as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, to lying to the FBI about conversations with the then-Russian ambassador to the United States during the presidential transition period.

But the Justice Department said last week that the FBI had insufficient basis to question Flynn in the first place and that statements he made during the interview were not material to the broader counterintelligence investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.

The department said that dismissing the case was in the interest of justice, and that it was following the recommendation of a United States attorney who had been appointed by Attorney General William Barr to investigate the handling of the Flynn investigation.

The decision must first go through Sullivan, who said in a written order Tuesday night that “given the current posture of this case,” he anticipated “that individuals and organizations will seek leave of the Court” to file briefs expressing their opinions.

That is a likely reference to the considerable debate the Justice Department’s action has prompted over the last week, with some former law enforcement officials who were involved in the investigation expressing their dismay over the planned dismissal through public statements or newspaper opinion pieces.

The judge said he expects to set a scheduling order governing the submission of such briefs, known as amicus curiae — or friend-of-the-court — briefs.

In a court filing Tuesday night, lawyers for Flynn objected to an amicus brief that a group identifying itself as “Watergate Prosecutors” had said it intended to submit, saying the brief and others like it have “no place in this Court.”

“A criminal case is a dispute between the United States and a criminal defendant. There is no place for third parties to meddle in the dispute, and certainly not to usurp the role of the government’s counsel,” Flynn’s attorneys wrote.

It is also possible that Sullivan could ask for additional information from the department about its decision, including more details about why it was abruptly abandoning a case it had pursued in court since 2017, when Flynn pleaded guilty.

In an interview Tuesday evening with Fox News, Justice Department spokesperson Kerri Kupec said the department’s position was clear in the motion to dismiss the case.

“We do not believe this case should have been brought, we are correcting that and we certainly hope that in the interest of true justice, that the judge ultimately agrees and drops the case against General Flynn,” she said.

Fauci Warns of ‘Suffering and Death’ if US Reopens Too Soon

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Senators listen as Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks remotely during a virtual Senate Committee for Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions hearing, Tuesday, May 12, 2020 on Capitol Hill in Washington. Seated from left are Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., center, and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. (Win McNamee/Pool via AP)

By: Lauran Neergaard & Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, warned bluntly Tuesday of “really serious” consequences of suffering, death and deeper economic damage if state and local officials lift stay-at-home orders too quickly, even as President Donald Trump pushes them to act to right a free-falling economy.

Fauci’s testimony before a Senate committee came as more than two dozen states have begun to lift their lockdowns as a first step toward economic recovery.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., listens to testimony before the Senate Committee for Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions hearing, Tuesday, May 12, 2020 on Capitol Hill in Washington. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is to testify before the committee. (Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post via AP, Pool)

Underscoring the seriousness of the pandemic that has reached Congress and the White House, Fauci and other experts testified by video from their homes. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., chaired the hearing by video from the study in his cabin in Tennessee, though several members of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee did attend at the Capitol.

Fauci and other health officials stressed that pandemic danger persists, even as testing increases and work toward a vaccine and treatments continues.

More COVID-19 infections are inevitable as people again start gathering, but how prepared communities are to stamp out those sparks will determine how bad the rebound is, Fauci told the senators.

“There is no doubt, even under the best of circumstances, when you pull back on mitigation you will see some cases appear,” Fauci said.

And if there is a rush to reopen without following guidelines, “my concern is we will start to see little spikes that might turn into outbreaks,” he said. “The consequences could be really serious.”

In fact, he said opening too soon “could turn the clock back,” and that not only would cause “some suffering and death that could be avoided, but could even set you back on the road to try to get economic recovery.”

Fauci was among the health experts testifying Tuesday to the Senate panel, as Trump has been praising states that are reopening after the prolonged lockdown aimed at controlling the virus’s spread.

Committee chairman Alexander said as the hearing opened that “what our country has done so far in testing is impressive, but not nearly enough.”

Worldwide, the virus has infected nearly 4.2 million people and killed over 287,000 — more than 80,000 in U.S. alone. Asked if the U.S. mortality count was correct, Fauci said, “the number is likely higher. I don’t know exactly what percent higher but almost certainly it’s higher.”

Fauci, a member of the coronavirus task force charged with shaping the response to COVID-19, testified via video conference after self-quarantining as a White House staffer tested positive for the virus.

With the U.S. economy in free-fall and more than 30 million people unemployed, Trump has been anxious to reopen states for business.

A recent Associated Press review determined that 17 states did not meet a key White House benchmark for loosening restrictions — a 14-day downward trajectory in new cases or positive test rates. Yet many of those have begun to reopen or are about to do so, including Alabama, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah.

Of the 33 states that have had a 14-day downward trajectory of either cases or positive test rates, 25 are partially opened or moving to reopen within days, the AP analysis found. Other states that have not seen a 14-day decline, remain closed despite meeting some benchmarks.

Besides Fauci, of the National Institutes of Health, the other experts include FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn and Dr. Robert Redfield, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — both in self-quarantine—and Adm. Brett Giroir, the coronavirus “testing czar” at the Department of Health and Human Services.

The event Tuesday got underway in the committee’s storied hearing room, but that’s about all that remained of the pre-pandemic way of conducting oversight. The senators running the event, Alexander and Democrat Patty Murray of Washington, were heads on video screens, with an array of personal items in the background as they isolated back home.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., left, and Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., greet each other with an elbow bump before the Senate Committee for Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions hearing, Tuesday, May 12, 2020 on Capitol Hill in Washington. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is to testify before the committee. (Win McNamee/Pool via AP)

A few senators, such as Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski and Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy, personally attended the session in the hearing room. They wore masks, as did an array of aides buzzing behind them.

The health committee hearing offers a very different setting from the White House coronavirus task force briefings the administration witnesses have all participated in. Most significantly, Trump did not control the agenda.

Eyeing the November elections, the president has been urging on protesters who oppose their state governors’ stay-at-home orders, while expressing his own confidence that the coronavirus will fade away as summer advances and Americans return to work and other pursuits.

The U.S. has seen at least 1.3 million infections and nearly 81,000 confirmed deaths from the virus, the highest toll in the world by far, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Separately, one expert from the World Health Organization has already warned that some countries are “driving blind” into reopening their economies without having strong systems to track new outbreaks. And three countries that do have robust tracing systems — South Korea, Germany and China — have already seen new outbreaks after lockdown rules were relaxed.

WHO’s emergencies chief, Dr. Michael Ryan, said Germany and South Korea have good contact tracing that hopefully can detect and stop virus clusters before they get out of control. But he said other nations — which he did not name — have not effectively employed investigators to contact people who test positive, track down their contacts and get them into quarantine before they can spread the virus.

“Shutting your eyes and trying to drive through this blind is about as silly an equation as I’ve seen,” Ryan said. “Certain countries are setting themselves up for some seriously blind driving over the next few months.”

Apple, Google, some U.S. states and European countries are developing contact-tracing apps that show whether someone has crossed paths with an infected person. But experts say the technology only supplements and does not replace labor-intensive human work.

U.S. contact tracing remains a patchwork of approaches and readiness levels. States are hiring contact tracers but experts say tens of thousands will be needed across the country.

In other coronavirus developments, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled a more than $3 trillion coronavirus aid package Tuesday, providing nearly $1 trillion for states and cities, “hazard pay” for essential workers and a new round of cash payments to individuals.

The House is expected to vote on the package as soon as Friday, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said there is no “urgency.” The Senate will wait until after Memorial Day to act.

“We must think big, for the people now,” Pelosi said from the speaker’s office at the Capitol.

“Not acting is the most expensive course,” she said.

Lines drawn, the pandemic response from Congress will test the House and Senate — and President Trump — as Washington navigates the crisis with the nation’s health and economic security at stake.

The so-called Heroes Act from Democrats is built around nearly $1 trillion for states, cities and tribal governments to avert layoffs, focused chiefly on $375 billion for smaller suburban and rural municipalities largely left out of earlier bills.

The bill will offer a fresh round of $1,200 direct cash aid to individuals, increased to up to $6,000 per household, and launches a $175 billion housing assistance fund to help pay rents and mortgages. There is $75 billion more for virus testing.

It would continue, through January, the $600-per-week boost to unemployment benefits. It adds a 15% increase for food stamps and new help for paying employer-backed health coverage. For businesses, it provides an employee retention tax credit.

There’s $200 billion in “hazard pay” for essential workers on the front lines of the crisis.

Pelosi drew on U.S. history — and poetry — to suggest “no man is an island” as she called on Americans to respond to the crisis with a strategy of science, virus testing and empathy.

“We are presenting a plan do what is necessary to deal with the corona crisis and make sure we can get the country back to work and school safely,” she said.

“There are those who said, ‘Let’s just pause,’” she added. “Hunger doesn’t take a pause. Rent doesn’t take a pause. Bills don’t take a pause.”

But the 1,800-page package is heading straight into a Senate roadblock. Senate Republicans are not planning to vote on any new relief until June, after a Memorial Day recess.

Trump has already signed into law nearly $3 trillion in aid approved by Congress.

Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn and Dr. Robert Redfield

McConnell on Tuesday called the emerging Democratic bill a “big laundry list of pet priorities.” He said it’s not something that “deals with reality.”

The new package extends some provisions from previous aid packages, and adds new ones.

There are other new resources, including $25 billion for the U.S. Postal Service. There is help for the 2020 Census. For the November election, the bill provides $3.6 billion to help local officials prepare for the challenges of voting during the pandemic.

The popular Payroll Protection Program, which has been boosted in past bills, would see another $10 billion to ensure under-served businesses and nonprofit organizations have access to grants through a disaster loan program.

For hospitals and other health care providers, there’s another $100 billion infusion to help cover costs and additional help for hospitals serving low-income communities.

There’s another $600 million in funding to tackle the issue of rapid spread of the virus in state and federal prisons, along with $600 million in help to local police departments for salaries and equipment

McConnell said he is working with the White House on next steps. His priority is to ensure any new package includes liability protections for health care providers and businesses that are reopening. Trump is expected to meet Tuesday with a group of Senate Republicans.

“I don’t think we have yet felt the urgency of acting immediately,” McConnell told reporters earlier this week at the Capitol.

As states weigh the health risks of re-opening, McConnell said Tuesday the nation needs to “regroup and find a more sustainable middle ground between total lockdown and total normalcy.”

Top GOP senators flatly rejected the House bill. “What Nancy Pelosi is proposing will never pass the Senate,” said Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the third-ranking Republican.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said, “I don’t think there’s a sense of urgency to do it now.” He noted that already-approved money still hasn’t “gone out the door.”

The Senate recently reopened its side of the Capitol while the House remains largely shuttered due to the health concerns.

Senators have been in session since last week, voting on Trump’s nominees for judicial and executive branch positions and other issues. The Senate majority, the 53-member Senate Republican conference, is meeting for its regular luncheons most days, spread out three to a table for social distance. Democrats are convening by phone. Many senators, but not all, are wearing masks.

At least a dozen Capitol police officers and other staff have tested positive for the virus, and at least one senator, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, is in isolation at home after exposure from a staff member who tested positive. Other lawmakers have cycled in and out of quarantine.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer warned that if Trump and congressional Republicans “slow walk” more aid they will be repeating President Herbert Hoover’s “tepid” response to the Great Depression.

(Associated Press)

Concern Grows About Crime in NYC During Lockdown as Shootings Spike in Bklyn

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(AP )

By: Jared Evan

While we constantly hear that crime is at all time lows in NYC from local officials, however, there has been an increase in violence according to locals across NYC and an increase in shootings in Brooklyn

In the Bronx, the Citizens App, a phone application which alerts users of crime in the area, goes off all day, with reports of stabbings, people being jumped on the street, cell phone robberies, assaults, gang brawls and shootings.  The crime is incessant, yet our government officials tell us, things are wonderful.

Reports from colleagues who live in the expensive and hip Hell’s kitchen are downright frightening. W 42nd Street Magazine, a local publication covering Hell’s kitchen and the theater district reported the following:

“It seemed fine because it was mostly empty. Then, as I was walking north, I saw a gentleman coming south. I started to cross the street, and he followed me. I started walking faster, he started walking faster. He was jogging towards me. It got to the point where he was within arm’s reach and I was kind of freaking out.”

“It was crazy. I was basically chased down, and if it were not for the fact that I spotted a police car and started to run towards it, undoubtedly, he would have taken my camera. There was no doubt in my mind,” she says. “I’ve never had an experience like that.”

“And the police officer? “They didn’t do a thing. They watched the whole thing happen. I looked him dead in the eyes as I was running towards him, stood next to his car, and he looked at me out the window. He didn’t roll the window down to be like, ‘Are you OK?’”

“It’s terrifying, the fact that we’re at a place now where we can’t even be out in broad daylight without feeling there’s some inherent risk.”

The expensive neighborhood which is home to the people who fuel Broadway has been overrun with homeless schizophrenics, and after de Blasio had a safe “shooting” up site, for junkies to safely use heroin, addicts nodding off on the floor, defecating on the floor and worse. This would not be so bad if it was the 1970’s and apartments in the area were $200 a month, but they are not they are $5000 a month for a small apartment. Hard working people deserve better.

To top it off the mayor released several violent felons from jail to prevent the spread of coronavirus in jails. One must wonder how violent felons are confused with nonviolent offenders when choosing who to release.

One person is dead, another wounded in two separate Brooklyn shootings last week in Brooklyn. AM NY reported. One in Sheepshead Bay, the other in Crown Heights.

On Mother’s Day two more were shot dead in Brooklyn., including an upcoming rap artist.

Brooklyn has seen a nearly 6 percent increase in gunplay and a 10.5 percent increase in shooting victims since March 16 compared with the same period last year, according to the latest statistics. In terms of numbers, that is two more shootings and four additional victims, the NY Post reported.

Most New Yorker’s believe the crime numbers are under reported, and they are probably correct. Install Citizen’s app into your phone and you will be amazed at what is going on in many neighborhoods in NYC. Meanwhile, New Yorkers are being arrested for small City Hall protests and for not wearing a mask. IF you dare to open up your business, an entire platoon of police will arrive at your store front. This is the dystopian world,  hard leftist leadership has brought New York.

Report: Non-Profit Nursing Home Execs Bringing in Astronomical Salaries

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An image of Riverdale with The Hebrew Home (caring.com)

By: R. Kotkin

The NY Post ran an investigative report into the salaries of executives running Nonprofit nursing homes.

Nursing homes have been under a microscope lately.  States like Pennsylvania and North Carolina are seeing majorities of virus deaths at nursing homes. NY from the start of the pandemic has had issue after issue with nursing homes, after the Governor started sending seniors who were dismissed from hospitals to quarantine at nursing homes. Cuomo recently admitted this was an error and laid out new safety requirements for nursing homes. It is well known these nursing homes were not equipped to handle an increase of residents, especially ones recovering from coronavirus

Approximately two-thirds of nursing homes in the United States are operated by private, for-profit firms, while another 25 percent are owned by not-for-profits and 10 percent are operated by the government, according to the AGS foundation.  The public perception is that nonprofit nursing homes are better operated than for profit nursing homes. However as “how stuff works” points out; because for-profit homes depend upon customer satisfaction in order to get new residents, they may be very well-run. And just because a not-for-profit or governmental group has its name on the letterhead does not mean you will get great care. These groups may lend their name to the nursing home, while actual day-to-day management is done by an outside company.

The NY Post reported: The heads of five homes had pay packages that neared $1 million or topped it, according to a review of 2018 tax filings for the facilities, the latest available.

The publication zeroed on Daniel Reingold, the CEO of the Hebrew Home in Riverdale. He is the highest paid CEO of a nonprofit nursing home in the city

Reingold took in: $1.5 million including a salary of $833,930, a bonus of $197,910 and “other compensation” of $412,947, making him the highest-paid administrator of the city’s nonprofit facilities. 25 virus deaths have been tied to Hebrew Home.

The Post also pointed out: Scott LaRue, who heads ArchCare, the Archdiocese of New York’s nursing home network, had a compensation package worth $1.47 million including a salary of $829,452, a $222,834 bonus and retirement payout of $109,591. His salary was 13% higher than the previous year.

They also reported: Alexander Balko, who heads the Metropolitan Jewish Health System, got a $1 million salary and a bonus of $200,000, plus $66,877 in other compensation and $124,000 in deferred compensation and other unspecified benefits. Another Jewish nursing home made the list: The salary and benefits for Michael Rosenblut, president of the Parker Jewish Institute in Queens, came to $1.2 million in 2018. The state said 53 residents of the 527-bed home had died of COVID-19 as of Wednesday. A spokeswoman did not return a call for comment.

Because of the recent exposés into NY Nursing home and Cuomo’s own misteps, the governor recently announced he will issue an Executive Order mandating that all nursing homes and adult care facilities test all personnel for COVID-19 two times per week and report any positive test results to the State Department of Health by the next day. The Executive Order also mandates that hospitals cannot discharge a patient to a nursing home unless that patient tests negative for COVID-19.

De Blasio to Increase Social Distancing Ambassadors Across City

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A recent scuffle between NYPD and citizens, who were not abiding by social distancing rules (AP)

By: Jesse Luke

After several rough incidents between the police and citizens, Mayor de Blasio announced during his daily press conference recently, he will increase its civilian “social distancing ambassadors” from 1,000 to 2,300 by next weekend.

“More and more the emphasis will be on a communicative encouraging approach through these social distancing ambassadors,” de Blasio said

One recent incident in the Lower East Side of Manhattan grabbed headlines with a viral video.

Last weekend a  violent arrests of three people for social distancing violations in the East Village, resulted in the opening of an NYPD investigation after video of the arrests showed cops throwing people against walls, tackling them to the ground, threatening people with tasers and punching one man in the face, Patch reported.

“So, we’re going to increase intensely the number of public servants who are out there educating, providing face coverings, reminding people of the rules, helping people to get it right,” de Blasio stated.

This increased “army” of civilian social-distancing ambassadors is designed to keep NYPD out of these kinds of confrontations.

“What we don’t need is anything that goes beyond the proper enforcement of these rules turning into something else,” the mayor said at a press briefing Sunday.

“And we saw a very troubling video a few days back from the Lower East Side, an instance of the wrong approach to policing that was very alienating to so many people in this city.”

“I think they pull at people in a very real and painful way and remind us of things that were too common for too long that are not acceptable,” he said of the troubling arrest.

“So, we’re going to increase intensely the number of public servants who are out there educating, providing face coverings, reminding people of the rules, helping people to get it right,” he said.

Recently 2 more videos circulated of violent confrontations between African Americans and NYPD over social distancing orders.

Patrick Lynch, leader of the Police Benevolent Association, on last week issued a statement calling for police to get out of social distancing enforcement. He claimed cops were being “thrown under the bus” after an “inevitable backlash”, Patch reported.

“As the weather heats up and the pandemic continues to unravel our social fabric, police officers should be allowed to focus on our core public safety mission,” he said in the statement. “If we don’t, the city will fall apart before our eyes.”

Anthony Beckford, a Brooklyn city council candidate and Black Lives Matter activist, argued that the social distancing arrests and summons are racially motivated, Patch pointed out

“This does not happen to white people who violate social distancing,” Beckford wrote on Twitter. “They are using the #pandemic as a weapon for further brutality. @NYCMayor @NYPDShea bring your rabid animals to heel!”

Cuomo Announces Twice-Weekly Coronavirus Testing for Nursing Home Staff

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In this April 17, 2020, file photo, a patient is wheeled into Cobble Hill Health Center by emergency medical workers in the Brooklyn borough of New York. On Thursday, April 23, 2020, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that nursing homes in New York must immediately report how they have complied with regulations for resident care during the coronavirus, and non-compliant facilities could face hefty fines or lose their licenses. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

By: Ilana Siyance

On Sunday May 10th, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that moving forward New York State nursing homes must test all staff members for Coronavirus twice-weekly.  To further protect the elderly and immunocompromised at nursing homes, COVID-19 patients leaving hospitals will no longer be sent to nursing homes.  The governor also said residents at nursing facilities will be tested as much as possible.  The initiatives are being introduced after a spike in deaths at the nursing homes and resulting criticism over the nursing facility outbreak debacle.

As reported by the Associated Press, in the United States there have been approximately 26,000 coronavirus deaths in nursing homes and long-term care facilities, a disproportionate one-fifth, or roughly 5,300, of those deaths were in New York.  Though many states have had difficulty controlling the highly-contagious novel virus in nursing homes, New York’s deaths in nursing homes were the highest in number as well as percentage, proving them among the worst breeding grounds for the infectious disease.

Health care watchdogs, lawmakers and relatives of nursing home patients have blamed the state for not doing enough to mitigate the threat of COVID-19 for patients in nursing homes.  Critics also say NYS delayed the release of the number of deaths in individual nursing facilities by weeks, and for still not releasing the number of actual cases of coronavirus.  They say the initiatives, namely to require extensive testing in the homes, come too late in the game.  NYS faces added scrutiny particularly for a March 25 health department directive which directed nursing homes to take in patients recovering from coronavirus and come from the hospitals.

The directive was also enacted in New Jersey, and was supposed to help alleviate crowding hospitals and free up beds in hospitals.  Now, “we’re just not going to send a person who is positive to a nursing home after a hospital visit,” Mr. Cuomo said on Sunday. The governor said these recovering patients would be accommodated elsewhere, and he suggested they could be sent to the sites which were originally set up as temporary hospitals.  He also said nursing homes can transfer any person they cannot properly care for there.  Cuomo was also censured for a recent statement in which he said that providing masks and gowns to nursing homes is “not our job”, because those facilities are privately owned.

Though Cuomo had been widely praised for his ability to amass supplies for the state’s hospitals, he has been less successful in controlling the situation in nursing homes.   “We’ve tried everything to keep it out of a nursing home, but it’s virtually impossible,” Cuomo said. “Now is not the best time to put your mother in a nursing home. That is a fact.”

Westchester’s Coronavirus “Patient Zero” Breaks Silence

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Lawrence Garbuz and wife Adina Lewis (courtesy photo)

By Hadassa Kalatizadeh

The lawyer who unwittingly because Westchester’s “patient zero” has for the first time spoken in an  interview.  In a sit-down session with NBC News’ “Today” which aired on Monday, Lawrence Garbuz said that when doctors first examined him, there was “no mention” of the deadly novel coronavirus that has since shaken the world, shut down the country, and infected over 335,000 in NY state alone.

Garbuz, 50, became the first known carrier in New Rochelle, where the virus spread rapidly.  The lawyer, who was released from the hospital in late March, was the second person in the state diagnosed with the coronavirus.  “I just thought it was a cough. A winter cough and quite frankly, I’m not certain that any of the sort of medical staff had been thinking about that initially when they examined me,” he said.  When asked by host Savannah Guthrie if the doctor during his first visit brought up the possibility of the novel virus, Garbuz responded, “Not at all. There was no mention of it at all.”

“I’m a lawyer. I sit at a desk all day. I think at the time we were sort of focusing on individuals who had maybe traveled internationally, something that I had not done,” he added.   A father of four, who rode the Metro-North train to get to commute to his Manhattan law firm, likely contracted the illness locally.

His wife, Adina, who sat by his side for the interview, said they originally thought it was pneumonia, but that he kept getting “worse and worse.”  She said, a “healthy, vibrant person, all of a sudden overnight gets so sick so quickly. I know that at this point, we’re not so surprised by that. But at that time, it was shocking.” When she first learned that he had COVID-19, she said she was “on the phone through the night with various departments of health finding out what to do, and sharing everywhere we went,” adding, “I didn’t want anybody else to get sick.”

After some time, she thought it would be best to transfer her husband to a larger hospital in Manhattan.  “I just didn’t think he was gonna make an ambulance ride,” said Adina, who insisted her husband be intubated for the ambulance ride.

As reported by the NY Post, eventually, Garbuz had to be put into a medically induced coma. “My wife saved my life,” he said. “After we entered the emergency room, I have absolutely no recollection of anything that transpired until I woke up from the coma.”  Unbeknownst to him, the novel virus spread quickly in his community, making Westchester the first coronavirus hotspot in the U.S.  Gov. Andrew Cuomo even instituted a mile-radius “containment zone” around the family’s synagogue.   Over 31,000 people in Westchester County have been infected, and more than 1,341 people there have died from coronavirus, as per state data. At the virus’ peak, the county was recording 30 to 40 deaths each day.

“I really have not focused on any of the media frenzy in terms of one of the first patients to get it,” Garbuz said. “But I have been focused more on, as I say, getting better.”

Garbuz’s daughter, Ella, expressed her relief and gratitude for having her dad back home from the hospital.  “This is just like a miracle for all of us,” she said.

LI Family Told to Put Disabled Relatives in Basement, Lawsuit Alleges

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A new lawsuit alleges that Long Island bureaucrats told a woman to put her wheelchair-bound relatives in the basement, as they proceeded to reject her home expansion plans which would have accommodated their special needs.

By Hadassa Kalatizadeh

A new lawsuit alleges that Long Island bureaucrats told a woman to put her wheelchair-bound relatives in the basement, as they proceeded to reject her home expansion plans which would have accommodated their special needs.

As reported by the NY Post, Debra Buffa, 50, became the caregiver for her severely ill parents and her younger brother JP, who has been in a persistent vegetative state for over 25 years.  She moved the three relatives into her home to better care for them, but wanted to expand the home’s ground level in order to accommodate them.  “We’re at a loss,” said Debra Buffa.   She is suing the Village in Brooklyn Federal Court for discrimination, seeking unspecified damages, related to their denial of her permit.

Buffa and her husband, Eric, moved with their three children into a 6,000-square-foot home in Lake Grove in 2017.  Even at the start, they had plans to expand the home to accommodate JP, now 39, who had suffered a stroke when he was 13.

The home was in foreclosure when they purchased it, and had 6-bedrooms and an open floor plan.  The first-floor master suite would be set up for JP, who needs a temperature-controlled environment.  However, only eight months after moving in, Buffa’s 75-year-old parents suffered a decline in health.  Her mother, Paula, fractured her shoulder and her father, James, was diagnosed with colon cancer.  “I needed to be in two places at once,” said Buffa, speaking of her brother and mom in Coram and her father in the hospital.

She moved them all into her house.  Her mother, who cannot go up the stairs to the bedrooms, sleeps in the dining room; her wheelchair-bound father sleeps in an office; and JP is stuck in his room, unable to venture out.  So in October 2018, the family began building an 800-square-foot, one-story addition.  The expansion, however, was swiftly halted with a stop-work order. The Village of Lake Grove ultimately rejected the project, saying it was too large.

As per the Post, Zoning Board chairman Robert Gaudioso censured the family for starting the building without a permit.  The family was assessed and paid a $550 fine.  Gaudioso suggested that the family just put Paula, James and JP in the basement or garage, or renovate the home’s interior instead of expanding.

Buffa maintains that those options are unsafe and/or too expensive for her.   “They’re treating us like criminals,” she said. “I wasn’t building a mancave. … let me take care of my family.”  For now the three family members remain packed on the first floor. “It’s heartbreaking,” Buffa said.

Buffa’s lawyer in the suit, Doreen Shindel, said, “The Buffas were punished because they dared to initiate construction prior to receiving the approval of the … board members, and to hell with making exceptions for the disabled.”