Daily Archives: May 14, 2020

The fast-moving coronavirus pandemic has forced millions of Americans to work from home, with no immediate end in sight. Dates for when employees will return to office buildings move later and later or remain uncertain for many companies.

On Tuesday, Twitter told its employees that many of them will be allowed to work from home in perpetuity, even after the pandemic ends. The move signaled a growing shift in attitudes in certain industries toward remote working a change that could have lasting implications.

Gallup data from the end of April showed that 63 percent of U.S. employees said they had worked from home in the past seven days because of coronavirus concerns, a number that had doubled from 31 percent three weeks before.

Full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak

Even as dozens of states have begun to partly reopen months after the initial shutdowns, experts said that past stigma around working from home has largely been lifted and that they expected much more remote work to be incorporated into office life for the foreseeable future.

"The views around work from home have completely changed," said Stanford University economist Nicholas Bloom, co-director of the productivity, innovation and entrepreneurship program at the nonprofit National Bureau of Economic Research. "There is no stigma around working from home now."

Bloom said that beyond the next year or two, he believes there could be "an explosion of working from home" in industries in which it was possible, "in part because we've all now tried it, we've got it up and running and invested our time and effort into it."

But future work-from-home scenarios would be very different from current conditions, Bloom said not only would children be back at school, but it's likely that employees would still have the option of going into the office a few times a week.

"That, I think, will end up being the new norm, and that's a big step up, two to three times as much home working as we previously did," he said.

Story continues

Barbara Larson, a management professor at Northeastern University, also said she expected a trend toward less density in the office for at least the next year or two in industries in which remote work was feasible.

"But who knows how that could play out over a longer period of time?" she said.

A study Bloom published in 2015 found that Chinese call-center employees took fewer breaks and were 13 percent more productive when working from home. He said that in the long run, the move toward increased remote working would benefit employers and employees.

Bloom said that usually working remotely was done on occasion and by choice. It provides a quiet, stable environment for employees a situation at contrast with the current reality, which is fraught with public health concerns and extreme isolation.

Download the NBC News app for full coverage and alerts about the coronavirus outbreak

Larson also said it was important not to "make sweeping generalizations" about remote working from the extreme conditions you're seeing during the pandemic.

"What you do want to be doing is looking for the bright spots in your workforce, what types of jobs are actually working out pretty well remotely," she said. "Where are there opportunities in deciding who comes back to the office first?"

Larson said it would be critical for companies and managers to be "very thoughtful and mindful of the way in which they are bringing people back into the office, not just from a public health standpoint.

"They need to be considering the nature of the jobs they have people doing and the individuals," she said.

Laurel Farrer, founder of Distribute Consulting and the Remote Work Association, said there was a very big difference between allowing remote working and adopting effective remote working strategies.

In the long run, companies will have to go a lot further to update their policies and communication to optimize their remote work settings and enhance their business operations, she said.

"They're not going to see that by just sending somebody home with a laptop. They really need to invest some intention and time into updating all their business operations to match this new way of working," she said.

Bloom said he believed the pandemic could also affect how we view sick leave.

"The stigma of taking sick leave, I think, will evaporate in part in the short run," he said, with companies terrified to have potentially contagious employees in the office. "How permanent that will be is hard to tell, but I think all of this is going to be a somewhat more permanent change. It will be more acceptable to take sick leave and more acceptable to work from home."

Bloom said that in the aftermath of the financial crisis, there were major pushes for regulation, which could happen in the years after the pandemic.

"There will be much more recognition that this is unlikely to be the last pandemic, so we want to make sure we're in better shape," Bloom said.

There could be "a massive regulatory push" to force companies to provide sick leave or health care, as the virus illustrates how low-wage, front-line workers without benefits have been forced to work, putting themselves and others at risk.

"It's the very group that you don't want coming in to work that tend to be those that don't get sick leave," he said. "A lot of the lowest-paid service-sector jobs that have the most contact with other people are the ones without sick leave."

Here is the original post:

Goodbye offices? Working from home might be here to stay - Yahoo News

Demonstrators watch a parade of motorcyclists riding in honor of Ahmaud Arbery

Ahmaud Arbery was jogging in February when he was confronted by Gregory and Travis McMichael. Mr Arbery was fatally shot during the encounter. Now, over two months later, the pair have been arrested.

Here's what we know about the case.

Gregory, 64, and Travis McMichael, 34, are in the custody of the Glynn County Sheriff's Department. They were detained by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) on 7 May.

The father-son pair face murder and aggravated assault charges.

The GBI has said the investigation is ongoing. More arrests could be coming. A neighbour who filmed a video of the confrontation, William Bryan, is also under investigation.

On May 11 Georgia appointed a new lead prosecutor in the case - district attorney Joyette Holmes - the fourth since Mr Arbery was killed. Her predecessor had called for a grand jury, but they cannot convene until Covid-19 restrictions ease in June.

In the afternoon on 23 February, Mr Arbery was out for a jog in the coastal city of Brunswick.

At one point, he entered the Satilla Shores neighbourhood.

A neighbourhood resident, Gregory McMichael, told police he believed Mr Arbery resembled the suspect in a series of local break-ins.

Police have said no reports were filed regarding these alleged break-ins.

Gregory McMichael and his son, Travis, armed themselves with a pistol and a shotgun and pursued Mr Arbery in a pickup truck through the neighbourhood.

According to the elder Mr McMichael, he and his son had said "stop, stop, we want to talk to you".

He said Mr Arbery then attacked his son. Lawyers for Mr Arbery's family have said the 25-year-old was unarmed.

Three shots were fired and Mr Arbery fell down on the street.

An autopsy report showed Mr Arbery had two gunshot wounds in his chest, and a gunshot graze wound on the inside of one of his wrists. He did not have drugs or alcohol in his system.

The delay is in part tied to prosecutor turnover: the case is currently on its third, Tom Durden.

Story continues

Two local district attorneys recused themselves due to professional connections to the elder Mr McMichael.

Officials have also publicly disagreed over whether there were orders to not arrest the pair.

Brunswick District Attorney Jackie Johnson - whose office initially handled the case - has been accused by two county commissioners of not allowing police to arrest the McMichaels immediately after the shooting.

Mr McMichael had been previously employed by her office.

But Ms Johnson has denied the claim, and said no prosecutors in her office told law enforcement not to arrest them. She blamed local police for not deciding what to do.

The second district attorney involved, Waycross Circuit District Attorney George Barnhill, had told police he believed the father and son had used citizen's arrest rights in confronting the jogger, and that as a result there were no grounds for arrest.

Mr Barnhill recused himself, citing concerns raised by the victim's mother over his ties to Mr McMichael.

Mr Arbery's family have criticised prosecutors' handling of the case as a "cover-up".

Atlanta Attorney General Chris Carr has now formally requested the GBI to look into the conduct of the district attorneys who first handled the case before charges were filed.

A former star high school football player, his father said he often exercised in the area.

His family has described him as a good, generous young man with a big heart. He would have turned 26 this month.

When Mr Arbery was in high school, he received five years probation for a first-time weapons charge and in 2018, was convicted of probation violation for shop lifting according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper.

Mr McMichael was reportedly involved in that 2018 case.

Gregory McMichael was a former police detective.

He also worked as an investigator for the local district attorney for years and had retired in 2019.

The first video surfaced publicly on 5 May. The 36-second clip was filmed from a vehicle following Mr Arbery.

It shows Mr Arbery jogging, and approaching a stationary pickup truck which is ahead of him on the road.

He tries to bypass the truck and then is seen struggling with a man carrying a shotgun. There is muffled shouting and three gunshots are heard.

A second man is standing in the bed of the pickup. The second man is then shown with a pistol standing alongside the other armed man with the jogger no longer in view.

On 10 May another video emerged, showing a man believed to Mr Arbery at a home construction site shortly before the shooting.

In the footage from a surveillance camera, a black man in a white T-shirt walks onto the site and is seen looking around for a few minutes before leaving and jogging down the street.

Lee Merritt, an attorney for Mr Arbery's family, said in a statement that it was Mr Arbery in the clip, and that it confirms the young man was out for a jog and did nothing illegal.

Police are investigating William Bryan, who filmed the first video. Mr Bryan, along with the two McMichael's, appeared to have been following Mr Arbery "in hot pursuit", according to a memo by Mr Barnhill.

However, Mr Bryan told a local TV station that he "had nothing to do with it" and was in "complete shock".

He did not answer questions on why he was there or why he started recording, but his lawyer said: "My client was responding to what he saw, which was someone in the community he didn't know being followed by a vehicle he recognised."

Around the time of the incident, a number of emergency calls were made, CBS News has reported. In one, a neighbour said a black man was seen at a home under construction. When asked if the man was breaking in, the caller replied "No, it's all open, it's under construction."

The caller then said that the man was "running down the street".

The dispatcher says "I just need to know what he was doing wrong. Was he just on the premises and not supposed to be?" and the caller replies: "He's been caught on the camera a bunch before at night. It's kind of an ongoing thing out here."

The owner of the home that was under construction told CNN that, while his CCTV captured four short clips of a man that appeared to be Mr Arbery "trespassing" on his properly on 23 February, he had not reported any crime to the police.

"I don't want it to be put out and misused and misinterpreted for people to think that I had accused Mr Arbery of stealing or robbery, because I never did," he said.

Police records show only one burglary report in the neighbourhood between 1 January and 23 February, US media report. That incident involved a gun being reported stolen from a pickup truck outside the home of Travis McMichael on 1 January.

The McMichaels have not issued a statement to US media. It remains unclear if they are represented by an attorney at this time.

But in their account to police, Mr McMichael alleges the jogger attacked his son in the road after they tried to stop him, and that they acted out of self-defence.

Mr Arbery's family has called his death a "lynching".

His parents said the arrest of the McMichaels was a relief, but they have expressed a distrust of local law enforcement.

His mother, Wanda Cooper Jones, told PBS News: "I honestly think that if we didn't get national attention to it, my son's death would have actually been a cover-up."

Benjamin Crump, a lawyer for the family, has asked for the same justice for Mr Arbery if the situations were reversed and two black men had attacked an unarmed white man.

"We know beyond a shadow of a doubt they would've been arrested on day one," Mr Crump said.

Under the citizen's arrest law, an individual can detain someone they have seen committing a serious crime and if the suspect is trying to escape.

Local media note that the law does not always allow deadly force in carrying out an arrest - that's limited to self-defense or times where it is absolutely necessary to prevent certain serious crimes.

While Georgia is one of four states that has no hate crime statutes, the federal government can file those charges.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday said its civil rights division, the FBI, and the US Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia have been supporting the state investigation.

"We are assessing all of the evidence to determine whether federal hate crime charges are appropriate," spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said.

Georgia's Attorney General Chris Carr has also asked the department to investigate the handling of the case.

The DOJ said on Monday it has requested Mr Carr send any information he has to federal authorities.

The case has also prompted members of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus to renew calls for a state hate crime law.

Link:

Ahmaud Arbery: What do we know about the case? - Yahoo News

Senator Rand Paul said Tuesday that the response to the coronavirus pandemic has been hampered by wrong prediction after wrong prediction as he advocated for schools to reopen in the fall.

The history of this when we look back will be of wrong prediction after wrong prediction after wrong prediction, Paul said during a Senate hearing Tuesday at which Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to the Trump administrations coronavirus task force, testified.

I think we ought to have a little bit of humility in our belief that we know whats best for the economy, the Kentucky Republicansaid.As much as I respect you, Dr. Fauci, I dont think youre the end all. I dont think youre the one person who gets to make a decision,

Paul said he believes it would be ahuge mistake not to open schools in the fall and noted that the mortality rate from the coronavirus for children approaches zero.

Keeping children out of school would have a disproportionate effect on poor and underprivileged kids who do not have a parent who is able to homeschool them and will end up not learning for a full year, the senator said.

In rural states we never really reached any sort of pandemic level, Paul continued. Its not to say this isnt deadly, but really, outside of New England weve had a relatively benign course for this virus nationwide.

Fauci said he agreed with Paul that the coronavirus has not proven as deadly to children as to others, but argued that the virus is still relatively mysterious and noted that some children with the virus developed a very strange inflammatory syndrome.

Paul himself tested positive for the coronavirus in March. As of Tuesday afternoon, the U.S. has seen more than 1.3 million cases of the virus and 80,000 people have died from it.

Read more here:

Rand Paul: Pandemic Response Marred by Wrong Prediction after Wrong Prediction - Yahoo News

ESPN is going to begin anew with its Monday Night Football booth, per a report by The Athletics Richard Deitsch. The network will not bring back play-by-play broadcaster Joe Tessitore nor analyst Booger McFarland.

ESPN will hire within the company to replace them and the two will remain in prominent roles at ESPN, per the report. That confirms a New York Post report earlier this week that pegged Steve Levy, Louis Riddick and Dan Orlovsky as in-house candidates for the job.

Last week, ESPN tapped Phil Dean, who has been with the network since 1992, to produce the weekly primetime game.

The MNF booth has been a question mark for quite a while. Jason Witten was not a hit with fans in his one year in the booth. He returned to the Dallas Cowboys last offseason. And McFarland got off to a bad start with viewers in the Booger mobile, which placed him at field level while commenting. It obstructed views and was retired for the 2019 schedule.

Whoever calls games this season will have a great schedule to work with after the NFL released it late last week in a three-hour show on ESPN. When Monday Night Football moved from ABC to ESPN, it seemingly took a backseat to NBCs Sunday Night Football in getting the best games of the week in primetime.

The company reportedly wanted to bring over Tony Romo from CBS, where hes been a star since jumping into the booth a few years ago. Romo instead agreed to a record deal with CBS on the No. 1 broadcast team.

Story continues

Then ESPN moved on to Peyton Manning, reportedly offering $18 to $20 million per year higher than Romos $17M to be its lead analyst. The dream was reportedly to combine Manning and play-by-play legend Al Michaels, currently of NBC, though that didnt pan out either.

Theyre still reportedly eyeing New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees to take over once he retires.

More from Yahoo Sports:

Follow this link:

Report: Joe Tessitore, Booger McFarland will not return to ESPN's MNF booth - Yahoo Sports

UFC 249 ended like we thought it would spectacularly. It was an incredible show filled with exciting fights, unexpected moments and all of the things that make mixed martial arts so great.

Getting to the starting line, though, was a problem, and that has nothing to do with when the card was originally scheduled for April 18.

When news broke on Friday that middleweight Ronaldo Jacare Souza and two of his cornermen had tested positive for COVID-19, it was like a kick to the gut.

Without any other information and knowing only that Souza had the coronavirus and was out of his hotly anticipated fight with Uriah Hall, it felt like this horrible year was going to continue to take its vengeance out on us.

Surely, it seemed, the UFC 249 fight card would not go on.

Were used to that by now five UFC events were postponed prior to Saturday because of the COVID-19 pandemic but on paper, this was one of the great cards the UFC had ever assembled and it appeared that it might be slipping through our grasp.

There were those who, justifiably, wondered if we should have ever gotten to this point. Coronavirus cases around the country are continuing to pop up and at this stage, there is no way to guarantee someone isnt going to catch it no matter how much testing is done.

But people are beginning to break their governors stay-at-home orders because were going stir crazy, and there have been no live sports to keep us company.

As Anthony Smith, the light heavyweight contender who headlines Wednesdays show against Glover Teixeira told Yahoo Sports, You can only watch the replay of the 1995 National Championship game so many times.

Hes right. And finally, the UFC brought live sports back.

JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA - MAY 09: (L-R) Opponents Tony Ferguson and Justin Gaethje face off prior to their UFC interim lightweight championship fight during the UFC 249 event at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena on May 09, 2020 in Jacksonville, Florida. (Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC)

As if they knew they were on a platform theyd never had before, these fighters poured their hearts out in the cage and in the process, provided a salve on a gaping wound that we needed desperately.

I know where we are right now, said Justin Gaethje, who performed brilliantly and with previously unseen restraint in a fifth-round stoppage victory over Tony Ferguson that was never even close that gave him the interim lightweight belt. I know where peoples minds are. I know how anxiety and depression, those are very, very strong things that can overcome anybody. I just want to inspire.

I think I inspired some people to do better tomorrow than they did today. Thats all I do every day. Thats all I try to do. Im not perfect.

But this event was the perfect antidote for what ails us. For seven hours of the entire card or three hours of the main card or however long you watched, it was a break in the everyday grind.

Turn on the news and all you see is the death toll and the number of jobless claims and conflict and division. This fight card, no matter what you thought of it going in, no matter whether you were even an MMA fan, was a break from the tedium life has become.

It began on the undercard. Vicente Luque and Niko Price went to war in a rematch that would have been Fight of the Night on many shows. Calvin Kattar delivered an elbow to Jeremy Stephens chin that had to sound like Mike Trout teeing up a hanging curve when it connected. Francis Ngannou did what only Francis Ngannou can do, putting Jairzinho Rozenstruik to sleep within 20 seconds with a blistering left hook.

Henry Cejudo defended his bantamweight championship with a remarkable performance, becoming the first man to stop the legendary Dominick Cruz. Then, Cejudo stunned everyone by announcing his retirement.

Walking to the cage, he flung his hat into the empty arena like hed done so many times in front of a crazed and packed crowd. He did it just to continue the ritual, to make things seem normal.

He wants to move on to a more normal life. He grew up largely without a father in very impoverished conditions in Los Angeles to become a hugely successful athlete. He won an Olympic gold medal in freestyle wrestling in 2008, then became one of only four UFC fighters to hold titles in two weight classes simultaneously.

Story continues

Hes been a prisoner of the grind that locks elite athletes in, and wants to live that normal life with our families that we all seek.

Its more the freedom, Cejudo said of his reason for walking away at just 33. Youve followed my story since the Olympics. I havent stopped since. Give a brother a break, man. But I did want to leave on top. Its a Cinderella story.

JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA - MAY 09: Henry Cejudo announces his retirement in the Octagon after his victory over Dominick Cruz in their UFC bantamweight championship fight during the UFC 249 event at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena on May 09, 2020 in Jacksonville, Florida. (Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC)

All of that would have been taken away had Souzas positive test caused the UFC to cancel Saturdays show.

White was adamant that we needed to move on and find a way to live while still battling the coronavirus.

Saturdays was the first of three shows the UFC scheduled at VyStar. The next is Wednesday and the finale will be on May 16.

White, in a brief post-fight telephone conversation with Yahoo Sports, said things will continue to get better.

Well improve, he said. Well be better on Wednesday than we were tonight and well be better next Saturday than we are on Wednesday. I thought the card was [expletive] awesome. I say it all the time but we do all the bells and whistles and these guys deliver and man did they deliver tonight. It was [expletive] awesome.

Awesome it was.

And, more importantly, desperately needed. We can go back to watching the death toll monotonously rising on Sunday.

For a few hours on a Saturday, though, Justin Gaethje, Henry Cejudo and all of the UFC staff and fighters who took part made UFC 249 the perfect antidote for what ails this nation.

More UFC 249 coverage from Yahoo Sports:

See the original post here:

UFC 249 delivers a welcome distraction from pandemic-afflicted world - Yahoo News

Washington (AFP) - Authorities in the southern US state of Georgia said Friday they had "more than sufficient probable cause" to charge two white men over the killing of an unarmed black jogger, but did not explain why it took 74 days for the suspects to be detained.

Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son Travis, 34, were arrested late Thursday and charged with murder and aggravated assault in the February 23 death of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery.

Arbery's death in the coastal city of Brunswick, captured in a video that has gone viral, was the latest killing of an unarmed black American, galvanizing activists who say the death highlights deeply rooted racism in the country.

Hundreds of demonstrators, their faces covered in masks to protect them from the coronavirus, gathered in front of the city's courthouse on Friday to demand justice for Arbery.

President Donald Trump said he had seen the video and called it "very, very disturbing."

"That looks like a really good, young guy... It's a very disturbing situation to me, and I just -- you know, my heart goes out to the parents and the family and the friends," he told Fox News in an interview.

Vic Reynolds, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, told a news conference that "there is more than sufficient probable cause in this case for felony murder."

Reynolds declined to explicitly criticize local police who initially investigated the case in the two months after Arbery was killed, but admitted "there were things that needed to be done and have been done yesterday."

"Considering the fact that we hit the ground running Wednesday morning and within 36 hours we had secured warrants for two individuals for murder -- I think that speaks volumes in itself," he said.

He added that the investigation was ongoing and there could be more arrests.

- Viral video -

Gregory and Travis McMichael were arrested two days after the release of a video showing Arbery being gunned down in the middle of a road in broad daylight.

Story continues

In the footage, Arbery is seen running down a residential street and approaching a white pickup truck stopped in the right lane with a man standing in the back.

As Arbery tries to get around the vehicle, he is confronted by a second man holding a shotgun. An altercation between the two ensues and three shots can be heard.

The man who filmed the clip that caught the nation's attention has also been named as a person of interest in the investigation.

Reynolds said the investigation would focus exclusively on the killing -- and not the reasons why local authorities were so slow to act.

Media reports have said Gregory McMichael, a retired police officer, had long worked in the local district attorney's office as an investigator.

The two first prosecutors in the case recused themselves, although it took several weeks for the second one to do so.

The original police report stated that Gregory McMichael had claimed he thought Arbery was a burglar trying to escape the scene of a nearby break-in.

He said he and his son grabbed their guns and set off in pursuit, but that the confrontation went badly wrong.

The slain man's family said he was simply out jogging and was the victim of a hate crime.

The footage of the shooting sent shockwaves across the country and prompted a number of celebrities to call for action, including basketball star LeBron James and actress Zoe Kravitz.

Read more here:

'More than sufficient probable cause' in US killing of black jogger - Yahoo News

Jerry Stiller, the comedian best known for playing Frank Constanza on Seinfeld, died Monday at the age of 92 and with it, a baseball player from the 1990s was unexpectedly trudged into Twitters trending topics.

As any Seinfeld devotee knows, were talking, of course, about Jay Buhner.

Jay Buhner isnt a Hall of Famer by any means. He was just an All-Star once while playing 15 years in the big leagues for the Seattle Mariners and New York Yankees. Hes remembered for a few things, though his menacing look at the plate, pairing with Ken Griffey Jr. in the Mariners lineup, and, oddly enough, one of the best Frank Costanza moments on Seinfeld.

Seinfeld loved baseball, with the famous cameo from Keith Hernandez and all the George Steinbrenner jokes. On the show, George Constanza was employed by the Yankees as an assistant to the traveling secretary, which brought forth many baseball-centric jokes.

In this famous scene thats getting shared across social media again, Seinfelds version of George Steinbrenner comes to see Frank and Estelle Constanza to tell them their son George was dead. Frank Constanza, played brilliantly by Stiller, responds not with grief about his son, but by lambasting Steinbrenner for trading Buhner to the Mariners.

Here are the quotables for those of you who dont have it memorized:

Frank: What the hell did you trade Jay Buhner for?He had 30 home runs, and over 100 RBIs last year. Hes got a rocket for an arm. You dont know what the hell youre doin!

Steinbrenner: Well, Buhner was a good prospect, no question about it. But my baseball people loved Ken Phelps bat. They kept saying 'Ken Phelps, Ken Phelps.'

R.I.P. Jerry Stiller. And, yes, the Jay Buhner trade remains one of the worst of the era for the Yankees.

More from Yahoo Sports:

Read the original:

Jerry Stiller's death has a baseball star from the 1990s unexpectedly trending - Yahoo Sports

NBA commissioner Adam Silver said Friday that the focus is on restarting the season but that there will be a series of bad options in deciding how that will be done, sources told Yahoo Sports.

Silver had a conference call Friday with National Basketball Players Association executive director Michele Roberts, NBPA president Chris Paul and players to discuss the leagues ongoing strategy to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.

Silver doesnt have to make a decision on whether to resume the season until some point in June, sources said, but the commissioner said there would likely be no fans present for games and that many cities have contacted him about hosting the resumed season.

The NBA would be facing a tremendous economic blow because Silver said attendance makes up 40 percent of the leagues revenue.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates recently stated that he doesnt see fans going back to live sporting events until a vaccine is readily available to the public. Silver said he found those remarks disheartening, sources said, because a vaccine is likely more than a year away from production.

Silver said its less risky to restart the season in a single location or perhaps two, sources said, and that hes not ruling out Toronto as a possible site, although the preference is to keep the games in the U.S. Silver also said Orlando and Las Vegas are options if the season were to continue, with each respectively serving as Eastern and Western Conference sites, sources said.

Silver said the goal is to play full seven-game series in the playoffs. He said tough decisions will need to be made because teams on the postseason bubble might not get a chance to clinch a spot if the leagues hiatus continues much longer.

The NBA season was suspended March 11 after Utah Jazz All-Star and two-time Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19. Silver said Friday that Gobert wasnt the first NBA player to be tested for the coronavirus, but that he was the first to test positive, sources said.

Paul expressed concern on behalf of players that some organizations could be pressuring players to work out at team facilities, sources said. Silver reiterated that its optional and advised Paul to follow up with the league if that conduct persists.

Should the season get the green light to return, Silver said he believes three to six weeks of training camp would be required before returning to competition.

More from Yahoo Sports:

See the original post:

Sources: NBA commissioner Adam Silver says 'there will be a series of bad options' regarding continuation of season - Yahoo Sports

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in two cases that could help decide the limits of presidential accountability and whether President Trump can continue to defy lawmakers and local prosecutors seeking to view his tax and business records.

While past decisions on presidential accountability involving Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton had unanimous outcomes, questions from the nine justices did not leave observers of the unprecedented live arguments with a clear sense of how the court might rule.

Trumps returns have been the subject of intense speculation since the 2016 election, when he broke with long-standing tradition and became the first modern presidential candidate not to make his returns public. Since then, multiple investigators, including House Democrats, have sought the documents amid questions about Trumps foreign business ties and potential conflicts of interest involving his real estate empire.

Along with deciding the fate of Trumps financial secrets, the pair of Supreme Court cases have major implications for the rule of law; they will determine the investigative powers, if any, that state and local officials or Congress have over the president. Its a question that has added urgency for those Trump critics who believe the Department of Justice has covered for the president by hastily wrapping up the Russia probe and dropping the criminal charges against Trumps former national security adviser Michael Flynn. If the Justice Department is indeed uninterested in pursuing investigations against the Trump administration, that leaves Congress and local officials as one of the last sources of potential presidential accountability.

The first case heard by the court concerned subpoenas for financial records that committees of the House of Representatives had issued to Trumps accounting firm, Mazars USA, and to one of his major bankers, Deutsche Bank. The second case covered a similar subpoena issued to Mazars by a grand jury empaneled for the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. as part of its investigation of a potential crime alleged to have occurred at Trumps private business, which is headquartered in New York, in connection with the payment of hush money to women during the campaign.

Story continues

Both Mazars and Deutsche Bank have said they intend to comply with a valid subpoena, and in both cases, lower courts held the subpoenas to be valid. Trumps lawyers appealed each case all the way to the Supreme Court in the hopes of obtaining a different decision.

In both cases, advocates for the investigators pointed the ourt to its past precedents.

Douglas Letter, representing the House in the first case, cited cases in which the court found that Congresss power to develop legislation implies a broad investigative powers. The court also instituted a rule of deference to congressional committee chairmen so long as they outlined a legislative purpose for their investigative activities.

In the second case, Carey Dunne, the lawyer for the Manhattan DAs office, relied on the principle that the public has a right to every mans evidence in a criminal investigation unless it is protected by some legally recognized privilege. He also pointed to the courts more recent jurisprudence cases involving former Presidents Nixon and Clinton that found a president doesnt have any absolute privilege from giving evidence to criminal or civil proceedings.

This court has long held that American presidents are not above having to provide evidence in response to a law enforcement inquiry, Dunne said.

In both cases, Trumps attorneys argued the presidents unique role makes him vulnerable to partisan attacks.

The fact that they seek personal documents doesn't mean that they're not targeting the president, Trump attorney Patrick Strawbridge said during arguments in the case involving the House subpoenas.

Indeed, both the Oversight Committee and the House Intelligence Committee have identified the president in his role as president as one of the motivating factors for their investigation, Strawbridge added.

Jay Sekulow, who represented Trump in the second case involving the Manhattan district attorneys probe, argued local prosecutors do not have authority to investigate the president.

No county district attorney in our nations history has issued criminal process against a sitting president, and for good reason: The Constitution doesnt allow it, Sekulow said in his opening remarks.

Sekulow went on to argue that granting the Manhattan prosecutor access to Trumps financial documents weaponizes 2,300 local DAs in the country.

The decision would allow any DA to harass, distract and interfere with a sitting president, Sekulow said. It subjects the president to local prejudice.

The attorney for the Manhattan prosecutor responded that most local district prosecutors would be unlikely to have jurisdiction over the president, whose business is headquartered in New York.

Sekulows opening statement touched on the second major element of Trumps attorneys defense in both cases the idea that undue investigations could distract the president from more important work. Sekulow made this case with a hypothetical:

Im going to call the president of the United States today and say, I know youre handling a pandemic right now for the United States but I need to spend a couple hours with you going over a subpoena of documents that are wanted by, here, the New York county district attorney.

Because of the unique concerns of partisan attacks and the presidential workload, Sekulowrepeatedly argued that the president is not to be treated as an ordinary citizen.

He and Strawbridge also raised the specter of a flood of subpoenas from multiplying congressional committees or district attorneys all over the country. Dunne, the lawyer for the Manhattan district attorney, suggested that concern was greatly exaggerated.

The supposed floodgates have been open for generations, Dunne replied to that argument, and theres never been a flood.

Conservative and liberal Justices found some common ground in the congressional subpoenas case, aggressively questioning Letter, the Houses general counsel, on his refusal to identify a limit on the legislative purposes the House could potentially use to justify investigation of the president.

Could you give me a plausible example of a subject that you think is beyond any legislation that Congress could write? Chief Justice Roberts asked early in the session.

Letter could not.

Time and again, the Justices returned to this point. In an argument that would almost inevitably focus on the separation of powers, the Houses lawyer had come to court without a proposed constraint on the type of information the legislative branch could forcibly extract from the head of the executive branch.

Carey Dunne, the Manhattan DAs attorney, avoided that stumbling block, proposing to the Justices that his office should be permitted to impose burdens on the presidency with subpoenas for documents if it made a showing of objective need and of a likelihood that the subpoenas would produce relevant evidence. Sekulow and the DOJ argued in effect that no subpoenas burdening the president in any way, whether as the target of an investigation or simply asa witness, should be allowed until his term is over. Dunne countered that waiting until Trump is out of office could block legitimate prosecutions due to the statute of limitations for criminal charges.

The clock is ticking, Dunne said.

It was clear that the court knew its ruling could have far reaching implications. Both liberal and conservative justices explained over the course of the mornings arguments that they were grappling with how to frame rules for Trump that could apply to future presidents as well. Nevertheless, the arguments also highlighted how Trump is a one-of-a-kind officeholder.

Unique among his predecessors, Trump came to the White House after a lifetime spent in the private sector. Other presidents placed all their investments into an independently administered blind trust; Trump chose to maintain close ties to his business empire and its attendant potential conflicts of interest through a revocable trust administered by his sons. Unlike other presidents, Trump chose to keep his tax returns and the details of his financial affairs secret.

This constellation of presidential choices, though hardly referenced in oral argument, lay at the heart of the unprecedented confrontation in the Supreme Court this morning. Dunne explained that the DAs jurisdiction over Trump is tied to his Manhattan-based business, and that the DA had to respond to public reports of impropriety at the company, namely its role in payments made by Trumps now incarcerated personal attorney, Michael Cohen, to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

The subpoena was not born of any political animus or intent to harass. Instead, it was prompted by public reports that certain business transactions in our jurisdiction were possibly illegal. Given those allegations, our office would have been remiss not to follow up in response, Dunne said.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Supreme Court has, since last week, been holding oral arguments by telephone conference, and in an unprecedented move it has opened up live audio of these conferences to the public. This gave court watchers across the nation a chance to listen in on the nine justices questioning for hints at how they might rule. That opportunity was particularly interesting since Trump has appointed two justices to the nations highest court Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh and the presidents critics have suggested a scenario in which his appointees might try to shield him from legitimate legal jeopardy.

The courts questioning in both cases revealed a panel mostly divided on ideological lines and past commitments. However, on the whole, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch didnt stake out clear positions and instead used their time to sharpen the inquiries of other justices.

Rulings in the two cases are expected in June or July, as the presidential campaign is in full swing. The court could, however, defy that timetable by ordering further argument or holding over the cases to the next term. For his part, Dunne alluded to the statute of limitations and argued that any further delay would play into Trumps hands and shield him from accountability.

Frankly, weve already lost nine months of time in this investigation due to this lawsuit, Dunne told the court. And again, you know, every minute that goes by is without even a decision on the merits here granting the same kind of temporary absolute immunity that the president is seeking.

_____

Click here for the latest coronavirus news and updates. According to experts, people over 60 and those who are immunocompromised continue to be the most at risk. If you have questions, please refer to the CDCs and WHOs resource guides.

Read more:

See the original post here:

Supreme Court appears split on whether Congress and prosecutors can see Trump's tax returns - Yahoo News

Tom Brady says his relationship with New England offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels is just fine, contrary to a report stating the two had friction before the quarterback left the Patriots via free agency.

Longtime NFL reporter Gary Myers tweeted on Monday morning that Bradys relationship with McDaniels had been deteriorating, and that he was worn out by Josh after all these years, according to a source. That, he said, played a part in Bradys move to leave the Patriots for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this offseason.

Brady took umbrage with the report, posting a photo of an article citing Myers report to his Instagram story on Monday night and called it nonsense.

19 years together and brothers for life, Brady wrote at the bottom of the photo while tagging McDaniels and adding a heart emoji.

Nearly all of Bradys time in New England was spent working with McDaniels.

McDaniels has spent 16 years on Patriots coach Bill Belichicks staff, and 11 seasons as his offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. Only four of Bradys 20 seasons in New England took place without McDaniels one before he joined the staff in 2000, two while he served as the Denver Broncos head coach and one when he was the St. Louis Rams offensive coordinator in 2011.

McDaniels had nothing but good things to say about Brady when he announced he was headed to the Buccaneers in March.

I have so much gratitude for Tom Brady, McDaniels said, via NESN. He has made me a better coach and more importantly a better person. He has always been genuinely kind and caring to me and my family. Yet, at the same time, I have never met anyone as demanding and relentless in his pursuit of improvement, perfection and championships.

His work ethic and drive propelled our offense and our team to perform at the very highest level throughout his career. He represented all of us with class and integrity. We will miss his passion and intensity, his character and wisdom, and his preparation and diligence. I will miss all the meetings, FaceTimes, emails and texts in our pursuit of a good play. He always performed his best in the most critical times under the most significant pressure. I have never coached a tougher player in my career.

Myers stood by his reporting Monday evening.

Based on Bradys response, McDaniels past comments and their lengthy, successful history they won six Super Bowls together theres likely nothing to worry about here whatsoever.

More from Yahoo Sports:

See more here:

Tom Brady slams report claiming his relationship with Patriots OC Josh McDaniels had deteriorated - Yahoo Sports