| Trump attacks core US values at Rushmore. Disagree with him, you're an enemy of the state. Posted: 06 Jul 2020 04:00 AM PDT  Trump's dishonest characterization and vilification of people whose crime is having inconvenient opinions gets close to the worst of the World War I era.
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| Virus fear prompts Mexican town to block road from US border Posted: 05 Jul 2020 11:09 AM PDT  Residents of the town of Sonoyta, across from Lukeville, Arizona, briefly blocked the main road leading south from the U.S. border over the weekend over fears of coronavirus outbreaks. Arizona has seen a major upsurge in infections and there were worries about intensified contagion during the July 4 weekend. The mayor of Sonoyta, José Ramos Arzate, issued a statement Saturday "inviting U.S. tourists not to visit Mexico."
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| U.S. court orders Dakota Access oil pipeline to be shut, emptied Posted: 06 Jul 2020 07:31 AM PDT  A U.S. District Court on Monday ordered Energy Transfer LP to shut and empty the largest pipeline from the North Dakota shale oil fields within 30 days, in a big win for the Native American tribes who have fought the line's route across a crucial water supply. Energy Transfer's 570,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Dakota Access oil pipeline (DAPL) is a vital artery to transport oil out of North Dakota's Bakken shale basin to the Midwest and Gulf Coast refineries.
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| 1 killed, 1 injured after car hits protesters on closed Seattle highway Posted: 05 Jul 2020 06:57 AM PDT  Seattle has been the site of prolonged unrest following the May 25 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, which sparked nationwide protests
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| ‘They feel invincible’: how California’s coronavirus plan went wrong Posted: 05 Jul 2020 03:00 AM PDT  The state was the first to issue a shelter-in-place order – now a few outbreaks have sparked an explosion, with 6,000- 7,000 new cases a day over the past weekFor a good while, it seemed California had skirted past calamity. It was the first US state to order residents to shelter in place in March, and its early, aggressive actions paid off. Despite it being the most populous state and an international hub with the largest number of direct flights to China, where the coronavirus first appeared, California's death rate remained relatively low.By May, Disneyland announced plans to reopen. The nation's top health official Dr Anthony Fauci praised Governor Gavin Newsom's leadership. And as the weather warmed, Californians flooded back to beaches and bars."We had reason to feel confident," said Dr Bob Wachter, who chairs the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. "And then, we hit some trouble."A few outbreaks sparked an explosion, with an average of about 6,000 to 7,000 new cases each day over the past week. Los Angeles county began to count more residents sick with Covid-19 cases anywhere else in the nation and Disneyland postponed its reopening. As hospitalizations surged, the death toll climbed past 6,000, and ICU beds in some regions began filling to capacity, California's governor, Gavin Newsom, ordered bars, restaurant dining rooms, cinemas and other indoor venues in the hardest-hit counties to close back up.Now, health officials and epidemiologists sifting through the rubble are left wondering how the Golden state lost its status as the public health golden child. 'People began to fixate on individual liberties'"Looking back, the decision to reopen when we did seemed perfectly reasonable," Wachter said. "We were doing pretty well, we had the resources in place to deal with an uptick in cases." Despite some stumbles, Newsom had set and ultimately met fairly ambitious goals to test 60,000 to 80,000 Californians each day, and stock up on protective equipment for healthcare workers.The Los Angeles Times editorial board wrote that California was lucky to have Newsom as its leader. "People are alive today because of Newsom's expeditious action," it asserted. The state's death rate was similar to that of Germany, a country widely regarded as a public health success story.The Newsom administration's four-phase plan to reopen slowly, while encouraging Californians to remain vigilant about wearing face coverings and maintaining distanceto stop the spread of disease seemed "perfectly good and smart", Watchter said."But what I think we didn't get right was the national political scene," he said. California, despite its reputation as a progressive state, wasn't immune to a growing conservative movement that rejects face masks as muzzles on independence and vilifies public health officials as enemies of the people.> People began to fixate on individual liberties without understanding that one of the most fundamental civil liberties in the US is the right to health> > Lee RileyIn Orange county, where more than 15,000 people have been infected, health director Nichole Quick resigned in mid-June after being confronted with a banner depicting her as a Nazi, protests outside her house and personal threats. Quick had issued an order requiring residents to wear masks in public, which the county sheriff insisted he wouldn't enforce. After she became the third high-level health official in Orange county to quit, the county quickly reversed Quick's order – recommending, but not insisting that residents wear masks.By the Memorial Day holiday Californians "thought they were safe to just have parties, go to overcrowded beaches, to get close to other people and take off their masks", said Lee Riley, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Berkeley. "People began to fixate on individual liberties without understanding that one of the most fundamental civil liberties in the US is the right to health – the right to stay alive." 'This isn't a political issue'As restaurants, bars, zoos and movie theatres reopened across the state, outbreaks in southern California have been the most worrying, with Bay Area counties seeing more modest rises. Over all, despite its huge caseload, about 6.9% of those tested for coronavirus across the state have gotten a positive result in the past week. That's higher than the 5% the World Health Organization recommended as the upper bar for reopening and much lower than the 25.2% positive test rate in Florida and 17.7% in Arizona.Scientists are still working out in what context most of the cases are spreading – early tracking data in LA county suggests that outbreaks in nursing homes added up with cases traced back to restaurants, workplaces, warehouses and retailers account for just about 15 or 20% of all cases. While the disease may have also spread amid the massive protests against police brutality, epidemiologists aren't connecting big outbreaks to the demonstrations. "We don't know yet where the majority of cases are spreading, but my suspicion is individual households," Lee said.Demographic data suggests that younger people, between the ages of 18 and 50, are fueling the current wave of infections, accounting for nearly 60% of cases statewide. "Maybe they feel invincible, so they go out to bars, they gather in big groups," Riley said. "But then they can spread the virus to their grandmas and grandpas, their parents, their buddies with asthma or diabetes, who are more vulnerable."Among the hardest-hit regions are rural counties in the south and the Central Valley, where farmworkers have been toiling through each stage of this pandemic. California is referred to "the breadbasket of the world" for good reason: it is the world's fifth largest supplier of food and agricultural commodities.As more Californians emerged from their homes, crowding restaurants and public spaces, "it really put our essential workers most at risk", said Ninez Ponce, director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. The vast majority – more than 90% – of farmworkers in California are Latinx, working in precariously crowded environments. More than 60% of workers involved in food preparation are Latinx as well. And it's those workers, many of whom lack access to healthcare and can't afford to stay home, who have the most to lose as the virus barreled through the state, Ponce said.Latinx, Black and other minority groups are disproportionately infected with and dying of Covid-19, according to a tracking tool designed by UCLA, and early metrics suggest that the state's reopening has exacerbated disparities. Devastating outbreaks in California's prisons and homeless shelters have further fueled inequities.The many complicated factors driving the surge of coronavirus in California have all collided in Imperial county, a rural community along California's southern border with Mexico and Arizona. Out of every 100,000 people in the country, more than 3,700 have been infected with the coronavirus – that's several times higher than the statewide average of 600 infections per 100,000.> I want our leaders to all step up and take care of the whole community because right now they're ending up in the emergency room> > Luis OlmedoAs the region's only two hospitals ran short of beds, concerned residents wrote to Newsom, asking him to intervene as local leaders allowed businesses to continue reopening. The community, which had already been besieged by toxic dust storms, suffering with one of the highest rates of poverty in the state, "was ill-prepared to respond to even a small outbreak of cases, let alone what we're seeing now," said Luis Olmedo, a community advocate who runs a local advocacy group called the Comite Civico del Valle. And though the local council eventually reined in its optimistic reopening plan, officials remained more concerned with appeasing the loud, privileged few pushing for a hasty return to normal, than protecting minority workers, Olmedo said. "I want our leaders to all step up and take care of the whole community," he said, "because right now they're ending up in the emergency room and they're ending up in body bags."Looking back, Richard Pan, a physician and a state senator, said the state rushed its reopening plan. Initially, officials had set two weeks of declining as a benchmark for advancing through each phase of reopening. "We wanted to not only flatten the curve but see a downturn," he said. "Then we began seeing the anti-lockdown protests, basically egged on with a wink and a nod from Donald Trump, and the governor faced increasing pressure to move faster."As the number of cases swell, the governor's recent orders pausing the California's reopening, and his statewide mandate requiring residents to wear masks, are laudable, he said. "Still, we're only successful if people follow the order – and right now, they're not doing it."Pan, who recently introduced legislation to protect health officials against attacks, said that the governor's presence at the top of every health briefing, as the face of the pandemic response may have backfired. Governors and mayors across the country probably felt a need to step up, and combat Trump's dramatic, bombastic – and counterproductive – daily missives, with daily press conferences of their own. "But they should have let their public health officials take the podium." he said, "They should have let them lead the conversation – to show that this isn't a political issue."
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| Thomas Jefferson alongside Black great-grandson holds 'a mirror' to U.S. Posted: 04 Jul 2020 02:37 PM PDT  Shannon LaNier, a TV host in Houston, is pictured in a photo in Smithsonian Magazine alongside his direct ancestor, Thomas Jefferson.
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| ‘We didn’t knock politely’: Details emerge of FBI raid at Ghislaine Maxwell hideout Posted: 05 Jul 2020 12:45 PM PDT  Fresh details have emerged of the FBI raid leading to the arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell, who is accused of grooming young girls on behalf of her former partner, the convicted paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.The 58-year-old British heiress is due to appear in a New York court this week to face four charges of aiding Epstein in the trafficking and sexual exploitation and abuse of minors, and two counts of perjury, which could see her imprisoned for 35 years.
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| Trump spends most of his time in the Oval Office watching TV instead of listening to his advisers, John Bolton suggests Posted: 06 Jul 2020 03:50 AM PDT  The president trusts "a combination of television and listening to people outside the government" over his advisers, the former adviser said.
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| South Korea rejects US extradition request over child abuse website Posted: 06 Jul 2020 12:14 AM PDT  A Seoul court says the man behind a massive child sexual abuse website could help future investigations.
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| Frederick Douglass statue vandalized in Rochester park Posted: 05 Jul 2020 05:13 PM PDT  A statue of abolitionist Frederick Douglass was ripped from its base in Rochester on the anniversary of one of his most famous speeches, delivered in that city in 1852. Police said the statue of Douglass was taken on Sunday from Maplewood Park, a site along the Underground Railroad where Douglass and Harriet Tubman helped shuttle slaves to freedom. In Rochester on July 5, 1852, Douglass gave the speech "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July," in which he called the celebration of liberty a sham in a nation that enslaves and oppresses its Black citizens.
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| China's state television channel severely violated British broadcasting rules Posted: 05 Jul 2020 05:53 AM PDT  Britain's television watchdog is expected to announce on Monday that China's state television channel severely violated British broadcasting rules by airing a forced confession of a UK citizen, the Telegraph understands. China's state broadcaster, which airs in English in the UK as CGTN, is likely to face sanctions, decided in a separate process by Ofcom, which could include hefty fines or being stripped of its broadcast license as a result of the investigation launched May 2019. The ruling could escalate diplomatic tensions between the UK and China at a time when MPs have become more vocal in pressing for a re-think of bilateral relations. The original complaint to Ofcom, filed by Briton Peter Humphrey, focused on a confession forced under duress from him by Chinese authorities in 2013. Mr Humphrey told the Telegraph in an interview last year that he was drugged and handcuffed to an iron chair inside a steel cage. Six uniformed police officers sat at a podium while the lead interrogator read questions from a clipboard and instructed Mr Humphrey how to answer, he said. A heavily edited version made to look like a news 'interview' with a bombshell 'confession' was broadcast around the world on CGTN, and other channels under parent Chinese state media organisation, CCTV – including in the UK. "They twisted things," Mr Humphrey previously told the Telegraph. "It was terrifying; all along, I knew I was innocent and that I was being falsely accused. I also knew that I had no way to escape."
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| This Chinese Submarine Could Drop a Nuclear Weapon on America Posted: 05 Jul 2020 06:30 AM PDT  Yet it is still armed with nuclear weapons.
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| Exotic meats are a Chinese delicacy. But they're causing concern about another outbreak. Posted: 06 Jul 2020 09:58 AM PDT  At least 200 species of wildlife, from snakes to civet cats to scorpions, are bred and traded in China, according to the Humane Society International.
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| Atlanta Mayor Orders Protesters to ‘Clear Out’ After 8-Year-Old Girl Fatally Shot Posted: 06 Jul 2020 05:30 AM PDT  The mayor of Atlanta is forcing protesters to "clear out" of the Wendy's where a police officer fatally shot Rayshard Brooks last month after a violent night that included a dozen shootings citywide and the death of an 8-year-old girl, the mayor said Sunday. "You shot and killed a baby," Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said at a news conference. "Enough is enough."Secoriea Turner was shot and killed less than a half mile from the Wendy's, which had become a place of memorial and protest since Brooks's death on June 12. Three suspects have been arrested on suspicion of arson after protesters set the fast-food joint ablaze the day after Brooks's death.Interim police chief Rodney Bryant said the girl was in a car with her mother and an adult friend Saturday night when the driver tried to pull into a liquor store parking lot and was confronted by a group of armed people who had blocked the entrance, NBC News reported. "At some point someone in the group opened fire, striking the car multiple times," he said.Police are investigating the incident. No suspects have been identified.Protesters had put up illegal barriers, at times flanked by armed protesters, to keep police out of the area near Wendy's. The city reportedly had tried to take down the barriers multiple times in recent weeks. Authorities had been notified of the barriers' resurrection less than an hour before the shooting. The Atlanta Police Department told Fox 5 they had planned on checking out the area but were swamped with other 911 calls."We're doing each other more harm than any police officer on this force," said Bottoms, who had allowed protesters to occupy the Wendy's for weeks during open discussions. "We've had over 75 shootings in the city over the past several weeks. You can't blame that on APD."Within hours of the mayor's announcement three more people were shot, one fatally, when two people exchanged gunfire, Fox 5 reported. "They say black lives matter," said the victim's father, Secoriya Williamson. "You killed your own. You killed your own this time just because of a barrier. They killed my baby because she crossed the barrier and made a U-turn."
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| FDA commissioner refuses to comment on Trump's claim that 99 percent of coronavirus cases are 'harmless' Posted: 05 Jul 2020 11:25 AM PDT  Trump calls 99% of COVID cases "harmless" in his July 4 speech. FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn refused to comment on the claim.
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| India scientists alarmed over 'unrealistic' Covid vaccine deadline Posted: 06 Jul 2020 12:28 AM PDT  A group of Indian scientists has warned against an "unfeasible" August 15 deadline.
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| Trump administration refusing to let Dr Fauci appear on CBS show, host says Posted: 06 Jul 2020 07:02 AM PDT  CBS News host Margaret Brennan has claimed that the Trump administration has prevented Dr Anthony Fauci from appearing on her show for three months.The moderator of CBS' Face the Nation, claimed on the show on Sunday that the administration had not approved an interview with Dr Fauci since 5 April.
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| China detains professor who criticised Xi over coronavirus Posted: 06 Jul 2020 03:45 AM PDT  Chinese authorities on Monday detained a law professor who published essays criticising President Xi Jinping over the coronavirus pandemic and accusing him of ruling "tyrannically", according to friends of the man. Xu Zhangrun, a rare outspoken critic of the government in China's heavily censored academia, was taken from his home in suburban Beijing by more than 20 people, one of his friends said on condition of anonymity. Xu published an essay in February blaming the culture of deception and censorship fostered by Xi for the spread of the coronavirus in China.
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| Iran confirms damaged nuclear site was centrifuge facility Posted: 05 Jul 2020 01:41 PM PDT  Iran on Sunday confirmed that a damaged building at the underground Natanz nuclear site was a new centrifuge assembly center, the official IRNA news agency reported. Iranian officials had previously sought to downplay the fire, which erupted early on Thursday, calling it only an "incident" that affected an "industrial shed." A spokesman for Iran's nuclear agency, Behrouz Kamalvandi, said Sunday that work had begun on the center in 2013 and it was inaugurated in 2018.
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| 'Black power, Black love': Video shows heavily armed Black protesters marching through Georgia's Stone Mountain Park demanding a huge Confederate carving be removed Posted: 05 Jul 2020 07:29 AM PDT  Between 100 and 200 mostly Black, and mostly armed protesters descended on the park to protest its massive Confederate carving.
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| Florida's new coronavirus cases break record, nearly tying New York's peak Posted: 04 Jul 2020 01:14 PM PDT  Florida reported 11,458 new coronavirus cases Saturday, it highest daily tally yet, nearly tying New York's high of 11,571 in April.
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| Madeleine McCann suspect 'could have snatched another child', say parents of young girl he allegedly exposed himself to Posted: 05 Jul 2020 02:54 AM PDT  The German paedophile suspected of abducting Madeleine McCann "could have snatched another child", say the parents of a young girl he allegedly exposed himself to in 2017. Christian Brückner was arrested in Portugal for exposing himself at a playground, leaving parents terrified that the convicted sex offender could have gone further and taken their children away in his van. The new details of Brückner's twisted behaviour in the Algarve have once again put the spotlight on Portuguese authorities as to why they did not link the career criminal to the country's biggest ever missing persons case. Instead of facing trial in Portugal, he was extradited to Germany on an outstanding arrest warrant for separate child sex abuse charges. The German drifter, who spent two decades living on and off in Portugal was arrested in 2017 after four children told their parents he had flashed them at a playground in Sao Bartomoleu de Messines, a town less than an hour away from Praia da Luz, where Madeleine went missing ten years before.
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| FDA Head Declines to Defend or Deny Trump Claim That 99% of COVID-19 Cases Are 'Totally Harmless' Posted: 05 Jul 2020 10:55 AM PDT  The President's claim contradicts the existing data
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| Alleged drug plane burns on Mexican highway Posted: 06 Jul 2020 01:01 AM PDT |
| China reports bubonic plague case, raises local alert level in Inner Mongolia Posted: 06 Jul 2020 04:57 AM PDT  Health officials in Bayannur said a farmer was sickened and hospitalized, leading to a local plague alert.
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| Israeli military says Gaza militants fire 3 rockets Posted: 05 Jul 2020 09:46 AM PDT |
| This Old Tank Helped Crush Saddam Hussein (It Was Meant to Crush Russia) Posted: 04 Jul 2020 01:00 PM PDT  An impressive record for an aging weapon.
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| Three officers charged in George Floyd's death are now out on bail Posted: 05 Jul 2020 04:33 PM PDT  Tou Thao posted $750,000 bond on the Fourth of July.
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| MPs call for parental leave to be extended by three months amid fears over childcare and job losses during Covid-19 Posted: 05 Jul 2020 11:02 AM PDT  MPs have called for parental leave for all new parents caught up in the coronavirus pandemic to be extended by three months, amid warnings over job losses and childcare arrangements. In a report published on Monday, the Commons petitions committee warns that Covid-19 has led to new parents missing out on "crucial support" and some experiencing severe mental health problems. This includes missing out on visits from health professionals and a lack of access to mental health services, dentists and doctors, all of which have been limited by the nationwide lockdown. Prompted by a petition calling for maternity leave to be extended by three months, signed by 226,000 people, the committee's inquiry found that some parents are at risk of losing their jobs due to a lack of childcare. With family members and childminders unable to help out during the pandemic, the report says that many of signatories of the petition were unable to find the support necessary to allow them to return to work. While the Government has suggested that women could be transferred onto furlough when their maternity leave ends, the committee warns that this in fact "was rarely offered" and is no longer available to "the majority of those returning to work in the coming weeks and months." Setting out a series of recommendations, the committee has urged ministers to extend maternity, shared parental and adoption leave for tens of thousands of people affected by Covid-19. At present, women are able to take a year's maternity leave and receive statutory pay for 39 weeks, while parents using shared leave are entitled to 50 weeks with 37 weeks' pay between them.
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| Former Nazi camp guard, 93, faces German court reckoning Posted: 05 Jul 2020 10:12 PM PDT  The prosecution's closing arguments will be heard on Monday in the trial of a 93-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard for complicity in the murder of more than 5,000 people during World War II. In what could be one of the last such cases of surviving Nazi guards, Bruno Dey stands accused of complicity in the murder of 5,230 people when he worked at the Stutthof camp near what was then Danzig, now Gdansk in Poland. Dey, who has appeared in court in a wheelchair, denies bearing any guilt for what happened at the camp.
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| Trump weighs executive orders on China, manufacturing, immigration, aide says Posted: 06 Jul 2020 06:06 AM PDT  U.S. President Donald Trump is considering several executive orders targeting China, manufacturing and immigration, his chief of staff Mark Meadows told reporters at the White House on Monday, though he offered few details. "It's dealing with a number of executive orders that may go all the way from dealing with some of the immigration issues that we have before us, to some of the manufacturing and jobs issues that are before us, and ultimately dealing with China, in what we need to do there in terms of resetting that balance," Meadows said.
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| COVID-19 could lead to increase in tick-borne illness, experts say. Here’s why Posted: 05 Jul 2020 07:52 AM PDT  "I'm a little nervous that their guard may be down just a slight bit."
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| Fire! America Loves to Go to War with the M4 Carbine Posted: 06 Jul 2020 12:00 AM PDT  Rugged, simple and accurate, the M4 carbine is the standard infantry weapon of not just the Army but all of America's ground forces.
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| College students are preparing to return to campus in the fall. Is it worth it? Posted: 06 Jul 2020 03:00 AM PDT  "No matter which way you slice it, it's just a lose-lose situation," one student said.
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| Shielding children will not have to stay at home again if second coronavirus wave comes Posted: 06 Jul 2020 04:35 AM PDT  Most children who are shielding will not have to take such precautions in event of a second wave of coronavirus, Government advisers have said. The change of tack raises questions over why almost 100,000 children have been forced to stay at home for months. In total, around 2.2 million people have been advised to stay at home because they are at great risk of severe consequences from Covid-19. They include around 94,000 children and teenagers suffering from underlying conditions such as asthma, diabetes, epilepsy and kidney disease. On Monday, England's deputy chief medical officer, Dr Jenny Harries, said the vast majority of children would not be asked to shield in the event of a second virus wave. Only a small group who receive specialist care in hospitals – including those receiving cancer care or those with immunodeficiency – are likely to be advised to stay at home. Dr Harries said the advice had changed because understanding of coronavirus had developed, showing that most children and young people are at low risk of serious illness. However, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said children who had been given advice to shield should still stay at home until the end of July, when the shielding programme lifts, or until they received specific new advice from their GP.
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| Horseshoe crabs may be the answer to a safe coronavirus vaccine next year. Here's why. Posted: 06 Jul 2020 06:39 AM PDT  Because of its quick and detectable response to bacteria, horseshoe crab blood is used in testing medications, and now, the coronavirus vaccine.
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| Coronavirus: India overtakes Russia in Covid-19 cases Posted: 05 Jul 2020 11:26 PM PDT  India has been adding more than 20,000 fresh infections every day for the last four days.
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| "Let Hong Kong be Hong Kong:" U.S. Consul-General Posted: 05 Jul 2020 11:22 PM PDT  The U.S. Consul General of Hong Kong and Macau Hanscom Smith said on Monday (July 6) that further measures are under review as the U.S. moves to sanction China over new national security legislation in Hong Kong.
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| Trump's angry words, virus darken US July 4th weekend Posted: 04 Jul 2020 06:08 PM PDT  The United States marked an unusually somber Independence Day on Saturday, with President Donald Trump bashing domestic opponents and China -- but praising the country's coronavirus response, despite a record surge in cases. Across the country, virus fears dampened or nixed Main Street parades, backyard barbecues and family reunions on a day when Americans typically celebrate their 1776 declaration of independence from Britain. Instead of adopting a unifying tone, Trump -- facing a tough re-election and eager to mobilize his political base -- railed against protesters demanding racial justice after unarmed African American George Floyd was killed by a white police officer.
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