36. Concern grows about shortage of plasma after FDA expands access to COVID-19 treatment. The FDA issued an emergency use authorization for convalescent plasma.

37. For the first time in three decades, military families and retirees are getting revamped IDs. The card will be more durable and more closely resemble the Common Access Cards.

38. Pentagon: It's time to bring microelectronics manufacturing to U.S. The U.S. government must entice companies to do more microelectronics manufacturing in the United States, the Pentagon's undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment said Thursday. Working toward a more resilient microelectronics supply chain, while also addressing national security risks: "We can no longer clearly identify the pedigree of our microelectronics," which are key to technologies like 5G as well as components in many weapons systems, Ellen Lord said. "Therefore, we can no longer ensure that backdoors, malicious code or data exfiltration commands aren't embedded in our code." The United States is one of three countries that has microelectronics manufacturing capabilities, but according to a 2016 report from the Congressional Research Service, American microelectronics manufacturers have increasingly moved microchip fabrication plants abroad.

39. The Department of Energy and Microsoft said they were partnering to create AI tools for disaster response. The DOE has created the First Five Consortium, which refers to the critical importance of how first responders make decisions in the first five minutes after a disaster strikes. Microsoft and the DOE, along with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Pentagon’s Joint AI Center, will apply AI tools to:
⁃Wildfire prediction and fire line containment (which is especially timely at the moment)
⁃Damage assessment 
⁃Search and rescue 
⁃Natural disasters 

40. It was early April and the military services had a choice to make: Do we shut down initial entry training and risk our end strength numbers for years to come, or do we power through the COVID-19 pandemic and try to keep these close-quarters hordes of young people as safe and healthy as possible? At Air and Education Training Command, officials decided to take a week to shut down and reset, then come back, nearly full-steam ahead with some key modifications. “We directed our [military training instructors] to graduate a class one week early. They trained through the weekend, they met training objectives,” Maj. Gen. Andrea Tullos, who commands 2nd Air Force, told Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Tuesday at Lackland Air Force Base. ”At the same time, we told the recruiters: Don’t ship.” The modified BMT went from about 800 trainees per flight to between 400 and 480, allowing for smaller groups in classroom instruction and some room to space out in housing bays with about 40 trainees, rather than 60. The service has instituted deep-cleaning protocols, mandatory mask usage and cots arranged with pillows alternating on the left or right, so no one is in each other’s breathing radius while in bed. BMT also streamlined the uniform issue process. Rather than moving trainees through indoor stations to get each piece of clothing and pair of shoes, they are shuffled outside to pick up a pre-packed bag of items according to their sizes. After two weeks, the “restriction of movement” phase ends and they can get into more training around the base, including preparing for Basic Expeditionary Skills Training, in which a field test is required to graduate. For extra space, as well as quarantine facilities, a tent city went up in a parking lot on base. There, trainees who tested positive, and their close contacts, could spend two weeks in isolation. But otherwise, Air Force indoctrination went mostly as normal, with less down time and some sections shortened, like time spent on military drill and ceremony. The first two cohorts that went through BMT after mid-March had five confirmed cases of coronavirus, Maj. Gen. John DeGoes, head of the 59th Medical Wing, told Military Times. At that point, tests were only available for symptomatic trainees who could confirm close contact with a diagnosed case. Since that point, and post-reset, there have been 30 more positive trainees, 29 of whom were asymptomatic at the time they were tested. That’s about a 0.5 percent infection rate in the 3,500 trainees who have gone through BMT since the beginning of the pandemic.

41. US home construction surges 22.6%, third monthly increase. Construction of new U.S. homes surged 22.6% last month as homebuilders continued to bounce back from the coronavirus pandemic.

42. Back-to-school search for virtual school supplies could lead to desk and chair shortages. Back-to-school desks for kids are in high demand, and it could lead to a shortage online.

43. 39% of younger millennials say the Covid-19 recession has them moving back home. About 39% of younger millennials (defined here as ages 24 to 29) say they are either planning or have already moved back in with their parents because of the economic downturn.

Grand Solar Minimum News:

1. Patagonia is facing a mini-ice age as thousands of livestock lives are lost. They are saying, “Decreased carbon in the atmosphere because people haven’t been driving around as much due to COVID-19... “ These are Grand Solar Minimum conditions that happen in a predictable pattern with predictable consequences. Global food shortage is coming. Prepare.

2. More than 100,000 livestock animals perish as intense snowstorms hit Patagonia, with 70% of the highland flock at risk. There are have been massive losses of sheep in the Patagonia highlands because of intense snowstorms. In the high areas of the Argentine Patagonia Rio Negro province, this could cause the death of 70% of the flock. Ranchers and laborers do what they can to save the animals, with their bare hands, without tools or protection, moving the frozen snow in search of the sheep.

3. The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of the Nation called an extraordinary meeting of the Federal Agricultural Council (CFA) to discuss actions that help mitigate the heavy damage that the wave of snowfalls that is shaking the Patagonia is leaving on livestock production South of the country.

4. The intense snowfalls that are registered in Patagonia not only affected the herds of cows and sheep of the cattle producers of the region, but the guanacos were the victims of the inclement weather that took place throughout the week.

5. In two tweets that went viral over the weekend you can see the animals feeling the severity of the cold and heavy snowfalls that have been manifesting these days.

6. Strong snow storms are wreaking havoc in Argentina's Patagonia, bringing down power lines and blanketing the region. A statement from the Argentine Rural Confederations regrets that the return to the harsh Patagonian winters, after a time of great drought, “highlights the terrible infrastructure conditions that dominate that region: routes, roads, sewers, telephone and internet communication services, gas, electricity, which collapse in the face of the phenomenon and complicate the attempts to rescue residents, families, workers and producers, as well as the losses of property in a deterioration process that will be aggravated in the coming weeks.”

7. The polar air mass from Antarctica plummeted temperatures in much of the Brazilian territory, as well as in Argentina and Uruguay, and threatens to cause a record cold in several cities until Monday.  Cruelest snowfalls in the last 20 years where animals literally freeze to death. Half buried in the snow without being able to move. This is also happening in Brazil and Chile. In Chile, the temperatures are the lowest they’ve been in 70 years. No one in the American media is reporting on this. Compare to the Doomsday Document by the British Government in which the Sun is doing limited release.

Kenosha violence: 3 shot, including 2 fatally in another night of unrest