*[The numskull's] staff cuts have undermined Covid-19 containment efforts, watchdog finds.*

US government agencies have been warning for 15 years that the US needs a reserve of mechanical ventilators to treat people affected by an epidemic.

Since the numskull claimed there was no shortage, he now can't bear to recognize that competent, responsible officials were aware of the shortage.

* Rightwing governments have denied the problem [of Covid-19] and been slow to act. With coronavirus and the climate, this costs lives.*

China is an interesting special case. It is repressive, like a right-wing government, but unlike them the real rulers are not businesses that hide their power over the state; rather, they are the officials of the Communist Party and don't hide the fact that they control the state. China's response started with the typical denial of repressive governments, then flipped to an all-out effort which turned out to be quite effective, though it has surely been used for a permanent increase in control.

*Covid-19 economic rescue plans must be green, say environmentalists*

Covid-19 may kill one or two percent of the world's population. If you think that is the ultimate horror, you may underestimate what climate mayhem could do. It may kill half of humanity or even more. It could destroy civilization. Some think it might make humanity extinct.

We must not treat climate mayhem as the smaller danger just because the worst part of it is a few decades away.

Feral hippos in Colombia prove to be ecological replacements for the mammoths and protohorses that humans wiped out when they arrived in the Americas. Their presence makes the ecology more like what it was 15000 years ago.

Shutting physical stores in some US states is helping Amazon dominate the US economy in an even more dangerous way.

I refuse to buy anything from or through Amazon. I always pay cash and only cash.

I tried to get take-out food for the first time since the shutdown. I called two restaurants near my home. One seemed to be not operating at all. The other was operating but would take only credit card payments. Since I refuse to buy any goods with a card, I changed my mind and did not order.