| Trump claims 99% of US Covid-19 cases are 'totally harmless' as infections surge Posted: 04 Jul 2020 05:48 PM PDT  President's White House speech capping 4 July celebrations says US coronavirus strategy is 'moving along well' * Coronavirus latest updates * See all our coronavirus coverageDonald Trump has celebrated independence day with a string of false and misleading claims attempting to play down the coronavirus pandemic and warning that China will be "held accountable".The US president staged a "Salute to America" jamboree on the south lawn of the White House with flyovers by military jets, parachute jumps and patriotic songs, but little effort among guests to physical distance or wear face masks.The country has undergone staggering changes unthinkable when Trump hosted the first such event a year ago on 4 July with tanks and other military hardware at the Lincoln Memorial. The coronavirus has infected 2.8m Americans and killed nearly 130,000, the worst tallies in the world.Saturday's national celebration was inevitably more subdued, but the president refused to let the pandemic or dismal poll figures rain on his parade, waving with his wife, Melania, from a White House balcony then walking the south lawn to ripples of applause and a cry of: "Four more years!""We got hit by the virus that came from China," the president said, prompting a strange whoop and applause from someone in the audience. "We've made a lot of progress. Our strategy is moving along well. It goes out in one area, it rears back its ugly face in another area. But we've learned a lot. We've learned how to put out the flame."The number of infections now regularly tops 50,000 per day, higher than in April when the US was in the first grip of infections. Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious diseases expert, warned this week: "I think it's pretty obvious that we are not going in the right direction."Trump returned to his now familiar and baseless complaint that America has a high caseload because it performs more tests. "Now we have tested almost 40m people. By so doing, we show cases, 99% of which are totally harmless. Results that no other country can show because no other country has the testing that we have, not in terms of the numbers or in terms of quality."It was unclear how the president arrived at the "99%" harmless figure.He also returned to his criticisms of the source of the coronavirus. "China's secrecy, deceptions and cover up allowed it to spread all over the world. One hundred and eighty-nine countries and China must be held fully accountable."There was applause from the guests, but the White House has so far failed to detail what measures it is considering against Beijing, with which it recently struck a major trade deal.And contradicting Fauci and other public health experts, the president offered a wildly optimistic prediction: "We'll likely have a therapeutic and/or vaccine solution long before the end of the year." The presidential election is on 3 November.But the lion's share of Trump's remarks were a rehashing of a speech he gave on Friday night at Mount Rushmore, breaking from 4 July tradition by seeking to stoke a culture war and pour salt on America's racial wounds instead of a unifying message."We are now in the process of defeating the radical left, the Marxists, the anarchists, the agitators, the looters, and people who in many instances have absolutely no clue what they are doing," he said."We will never allow an angry mob to tear down our statues, erase our history, indoctrinate our children or trample on our freedoms ... We will teach our children to cherish and adore our country so they can build its future. Together, we will fight for the American dream."Trump pointedly said "our way of life" began in 1492 "when Columbus discovered America". Statues of Christopher Columbus have been toppled along with those of Confederate generals during several weeks of protest against racial injustice following the police killing of George Floyd, an African American man, in Minneapolis.Some have argued that, instead of America's familiar birthday in 1776, the nation truly began in 1619 with arrival of the first enslaved Africans in Virginia.But Trump went on: "In every age, there have always been those who lie about the past in order to gain power in the present ... Their goal is demolition. Our goal is not to destroy the greatest structure on earth, what we have built, the United States of America."Trump touted an executive order he issued on Friday for the creation of a national garden of Americans heroes and berated the media for dishonouring, lying and slandering the country's best. He added: "We will not throw away our heroes. We will honour them and we will prove worthy of their sacrifice ... The patriots who built our country were not villains. They were heroes."Following his speech, Trump and the first lady watched a spectacular display of military jets that have taken part in America's military conflicts from the second world war onwards.
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| India's clinical research body defends timeline for coronavirus vaccine trials Posted: 04 Jul 2020 07:16 AM PDT  India's leading clinical research agency said Saturday its decision to fast-track development of a potential coronavirus vaccine was in line with international standards, after health experts raised concerns about the schedule for clinical trials. The Indian Council of Medical Research issued a statement after a letter was leaked on Friday showing ICMR Director General Balram Bhargava as saying the agency "envisaged" launch of the vaccine for public health use by Aug. 15, with the aim to begin patient enrolment for human trials by July 7. The vaccine, being jointly developed by India's Bharat Biotech and ICMR, is one of several candidates being tested globally to fight the coronavirus pandemic.
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| 5 Americans who flew by private jet to Italy were reportedly denied entry due to the EU ban on visitors from countries with high coronavirus infection rates Posted: 04 Jul 2020 04:47 AM PDT  Officials on the island of Sardinia expressed frustration at having to exclude the US travellers after their long flight, said reports.
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| Pesky storm to keep southeastern US drenched into midweek Posted: 05 Jul 2020 08:23 AM PDT  Forecasters are carefully monitoring a slow-moving storm system that has brought repeated downpours to the Southeast since last week. Widespread showers and thunderstorms will continue daily into the middle of the week -- and meteorologists say tropical development of this feature cannot be fully ruled out as it wanders toward the coast.Residents and visitors may continue to struggle to find long enough dry breaks to get outside and enjoy summertime activities, such as fishing, golfing and swimming. AccuWeather's MinuteCast® tool can tell you exactly when rain will arrive in your area and how long it will last."Showers and thunderstorms will be widespread from extreme East Texas and Louisiana to Georgia and South Carolina through Tuesday as a low pressure area drifts eastward from the lower Mississippi Valley to the southern Appalachians," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Joe Lundberg said. These areas have been doused by repeated downpours since last week, so any additional rainfall may struggle to soak into the saturated ground. As a result, the risk of flash flooding will be high."Many locations across the South and into the Southeast will receive 1-2 inches of additional rainfall through Tuesday, but isolated amounts of up to 5 inches are possible," Lundberg said, adding that the Florida Panhandle, Georgia and South Carolina may be the hardest-hit areas during the first half of the week.CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APPDrivers on stretches of interstates 10, 20, 55, 65, 75, 85 and 95 are likely to face slower-than-normal travel times due to the downpours reducing visibility and creating a heightened risk of vehicles hydroplaning at highway speeds.Remember to never drive through floodwaters and instead turn around and find a safer, alternate route."As this low slowly meanders toward the Southeast coast, the area of enhanced rainfall will shift more into the Carolinas, perhaps even extreme southeast Virginia during the latter half of the week," Lundberg said. "The amount of rain during the second half of the week may be dependent upon potential surface development of this system and its ability to draw even more moisture inland off the warm waters of the Gulf stream," Lundberg added.Regardless, AccuWeather meteorologists expect several inches of rainfall to douse the southern Atlantic Seaboard during the middle and latter part of the week.The key to whether tropical development can occur with this system later in the week lies in how far east the center of the storm can make it off the coast of the Carolinas, according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Dan Pydynowski."If the storm remains onshore or hugs the coastline, its interaction with land could limit its chance to develop and organize further. However, if the low center can drift far enough east off the coast of the Carolinas by later Wednesday or Thursday, then its chance to develop and organize further will increase, especially if it gets over the warm waters of the Gulf stream," Pydynowski said. Should tropical development occur, this would enhance rough surf and coastal flooding concerns, as well as the potential for gusty winds, from the Carolinas to the Delmarva Peninsula.Even in the absence of tropical development, forecasters say the storm will remain a disruption for those with travel, vacation and outdoor plans across the region as downpours persist.An upside to the stormier pattern will be a lack of intense heat that can be typical of the region during the summer months.While heat bakes areas from the Midwest to the mid-Atlantic, it will actually be a bit below average across the Southeast due to the widespread downpours, according to Lundberg.For example, Atlanta may only be in the lower to middle 80s during the first half of this week, when a more typical high for early July is around 90.Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.
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| Fourth of July: fears of the coronavirus second wave did not prevent revelers in the US and UK hitting the beaches and the bars Posted: 05 Jul 2020 02:52 AM PDT  US Independence Day and England's end of lockdown "Super Saturday" meant social distancing was abandoned amid the celebrations.
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| 24-Year-Old Protester Dies After Car Drove Into Peaceful Crowd in Seattle Posted: 04 Jul 2020 07:41 AM PDT  The driver sped around a series of vehicles set up by the protesters to protect themselves
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| Katsina: The motorcycle bandits terrorising northern Nigeria Posted: 04 Jul 2020 05:31 PM PDT  Insecurity has worsened in the north-west as kidnapping for ransom becomes a lucrative trade.
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| She got punched in the face while on the bed next to her 4-year-old, mother told cops Posted: 05 Jul 2020 05:19 AM PDT  A Vero Beach area woman told Indian River County Sheriff's Office deputy that her live-in boyfriend stopped pinning her to the bed only to punch her in the face.
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| Predominantly Black armed protesters march through Confederate memorial park in Georgia Posted: 05 Jul 2020 08:35 AM PDT  A predominantly Black group of heavily armed protesters marched through Stone Mountain Park near Atlanta on Saturday, calling for removal of the giant Confederate rock carving at the site that civil rights activists consider a monument to racism.
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| Rocket fired towards Baghdad Green Zone, child injured - military, police source Posted: 05 Jul 2020 01:13 AM PDT |
| Trump Faces a GOP Mutiny on the Russian Bounties Posted: 04 Jul 2020 10:18 AM PDT  The battle over intelligence and the Russian bounties amounts to a war by other means.
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| Florida reports over 11,000 new COVID-19 cases, breaking its single-day record twice in one week Posted: 04 Jul 2020 09:30 AM PDT  New York is the only other state that has seen more than 10,000 new cases in a day, with its peak passing in April.
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| 3 police officers have been fired over a photo in which cops took a selfie reenacting the chokehold used on Elijah McClain Posted: 03 Jul 2020 02:51 PM PDT  The photo featured officers Jaron Jones, Erica Marrero, and Kyle Dittrich, smiling by a memorial for Elijah McClain.
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| Exclusive: Covid-19 may not have originated in China, Oxford University expert believes Posted: 05 Jul 2020 07:38 AM PDT  Coronavirus may have lain dormant across the world and emerged when environmental conditions were right for it to thrive - rather than starting in China, an Oxford University expert believes. Dr Tom Jefferson, senior associate tutor at the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBM), at Oxford, and visiting professor at Newcastle University, argues that there is growing evidence that the virus was elsewhere before it emerged in Asia. Last week, Spanish virologists announced they had found traces of the disease in samples of waste water collected in March 2019, nine months before the coronavirus disease was seen in China. Italian scientists have also found evidence of coronavirus in sewage samples in Milan and Turin, in mid-December, many weeks before the first case was detected, while experts have found traces in Brazil in November.
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| The Grand Old Man of India who became Britain's first Asian MP Posted: 04 Jul 2020 04:55 PM PDT  Indian-born Dadabhai Naoroji was the first Asian to sit in the House of Commons.
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| India reports record daily cases in coronavirus battle Posted: 05 Jul 2020 07:16 AM PDT  India added a record number of coronavirus cases Sunday, as the world's fourth worst-hit nation opened a huge treatment centre with 10,000 beds in the capital to fight the epidemic. The health ministry reported just under 25,000 cases and 613 deaths in 24 hours -- the biggest daily spike since the first case was detected in late January. The surge took India's total tally to more than 673,000 cases and 19,268 deaths.
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| 2 California death row inmates die from coronavirus complications Posted: 03 Jul 2020 09:58 PM PDT  The deaths of Scott Thomas Erskine and Manuel Machado Alvarez came as more than 53,000 new cases across the U.S. were reported Friday.
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| An asymptomatic coronavirus carrier infected an apartment neighbor without sharing the same space. A study blames the building's elevator buttons. Posted: 05 Jul 2020 07:29 AM PDT  A woman infected her downstairs neighbor even though the two never came into close contact. Transmission likely occurred in the elevator.
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| Rising coronavirus cases in 39 U.S. states cast shadow over July 4 celebrations Posted: 05 Jul 2020 07:30 AM PDT  After towns and cities across the country canceled annual fireworks displays to avoid large crowds gathering, many Americans launched bottle rockets and roman candles from streets and suburban backyards to commemorate Independence Day. In the first four days of July alone, 15 states have reported record increases in new cases of COVID-19, which has infected nearly 3 million Americans and killed about 130,000, according to a Reuters tally. Florida's cases have risen by over 10,000 for three out of the last four days, including climbing by 10,059 on Sunday, surpassing the highest daily tally reported by any European country during the height of the coronavirus outbreak there.
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| US supreme court gives conservatives the blues but what's really going on? Posted: 04 Jul 2020 02:00 AM PDT  Donald Trump's nomination of two justices seemed to have tilted the balance decisively but recent rulings have raised eyebrowsFor all the ominous twists of Donald Trump's presidency, his placement on the US supreme court of two deeply conservative justices, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, inspired a special kind of foreboding for many liberals.With three conservatives already sitting on the court, the creation by Trump of a seemingly impregnable, five-vote conservative supreme court majority appeared to pose a generational threat to essential American rights and freedoms.But as the first full term with the two Trump "supremes" draws to a close, a curious development has taken hold. Last month, the court handed down a trio of rulings that clashed directly with Trump's agenda on the hot-button issues of abortion, immigration and LGBTQ+ rights – angering the president, tentatively pleasing progressives and leaving many court watchers to scratch their heads.There never was any doubt about the kind of supreme court that Trump and his sponsors set out to build. But suddenly there is doubt everywhere about how close – or far – their project has come to success."I've referred to this past month at the supreme court as Blue June," said Josh Blackman, a conservative court analyst and professor at the South Texas College of Law. "It seems as if almost all the big cases went to the left, and it's made conservatives blue – that is, sad."First Gorsuch wrote an opinion destroying the Trump administration's argument that a 1964 law prohibiting employment discrimination "because of sex" does not apply to homosexual or transgender employees. "Today, we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender," Gorsuch wrote. "The answer is clear."Then Chief Justice John Roberts, a George W Bush appointee, found that the government had failed to make its case for ending a program protecting so-called Dreamers – undocumented immigrants who arrived to the US as children."Do you get the impression that the Supreme Court doesn't like me?" Trump tweeted after the decision was released.Roberts struck again later in the month, vacating a Louisiana anti-abortion law on the grounds that the supreme court had vacated an identical law in Texas just four years earlier, before the arrival of Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.Roberts' defection eliminated the law in a narrow 5-4 ruling.Daniel Goldberg, legal director at the progressive Alliance For Justice, called the victory on abortion surprising, but not because it demonstrated some unforeseen liberal bent on the part of the justices."You know what surprises me, is that it wasn't 9-0," said Goldberg. "What does it say that four justices were completely willing to ignore precedent just four years old?"The response to these decisions just epitomizes how extreme the conservative legal movement is in this country."Legal analysts cautioned the recent unexpected rulings were not signs of real moderation, and they said the court had moved unmistakably to the right under Trump.Gorsuch and Kavanaugh were willing to expose about 700,000 Dreamers to deportation, and both justices argued in favor of upholding the Louisiana abortion law, which was seen as posing an existential threat to the landmark Roe v Wade decision. Even in tipping that case to the left, Roberts emphasized that he was not doing so on the merits."He has been consistently not supportive of abortion rights," said Gillian Metzger, a professor of constitutional law at Columbia University, of Roberts. "I would not read into his decision any signal that, if confronted with a new kind of abortion measure, or even potentially if confronted with an effort to really rethink reproductive rights generally, that Roberts would necessarily be a very sympathetic respondent."The court has advanced other conservative causes this term, expanding presidential power and challenging the separation of church and state by releasing public funding for religious schools.In one case, the four most conservative justices, including Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, ruled in favor of forcibly reopening California churches, against the will of state officials, in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, so that Christians could celebrate Pentecost. Again, with Roberts' defection, they were overruled.Multiple analysts said Trump's failure, despite having a sympathetic court, to deliver on his promises to dismantle Barack Obama's healthcare law and roll back abortion rights, could lie partly with flaws in his own administration's legal strategies.In a series of cases, Trump lawyers have advanced arguments that Roberts has found to be pretextual or beside the point, as when administration lawyers said they wanted to include a question about citizenship on the US census because they wanted better data to ensure protection of voting rights.Roberts, whose light touch as the presiding officer in Trump's impeachment trial just seven months ago was seen as aiding Trump's expeditious acquittal, doubted the argument. "Reasoned decision-making calls for an explanation for agency action," he wrote. "What was provided here was more of a distraction."A similar objection – not to say exasperation – was detectable in Roberts' recent ruling to leave in place the Dreamers program. Lawyers defending immigrants in the case said the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was trying to pretend that it might want to keep the program, but its hands were tied because parts of the program had been thrown out in court.Again, Roberts detected a note of disingenuousness. "An agency must defend its actions based on the reasons it gave when it acted," he wrote. "This is not the case for cutting corners to allow DHS to rely upon reasons absent from its original decision.""You see Roberts much more willing to push back on that side of the Trump administration, and so I would say that's been a shift," said Metzger. "Over time the Trump administration is losing a little bit of the benefit of the doubt."Rulings remaining in the current term – there are eight outstanding cases – could include powerful conservative decisions that could yet erase any memory of the court's recent moderation.In Trump v Mazars USA, the court is expected to rule on whether financial and accounting firms that have worked with Trump must hand over tax records subpoenaed by Congress, in what analysts say is a major test for the balance of powers in the US system of government."Although Trump v Mazars is about the tax records, it's actually about a more basic constitutional principle, which is whether or not Congress can take meaningful oversight of the executive branch," said Metzger. "And if Congress cannot do that, then we really are moving much more towards an authoritarian presidential regime."Just a few months after the last ruling of the term is issued, a much larger ruling will be handed down, with much broader implications, by some 140 million voters in the November presidential elections.If Democrat Joe Biden can defeat Trump, he appears likely to have the opportunity to appoint at least two justices, with the octogenarian liberal justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, nearing retirement. The Democrats would have to win the Senate too to ensure a smooth confirmation process and preserve the court's current ideological balance."If the Democrats have the Senate, I think it's very likely that Ginsburg retires immediately and Breyer retires the next year, two back-to-back," said Blackman. "That wouldn't affect the composition of the court, unless Justice [Clarence] Thomas becomes ill, so I think the court would more or less stay the same for a while."But if they win a strong majority, Democrats could attempt to pass reforms to bring the court more in line with the popular will, by adding seats to the court or imposing time limits on justices.Whatever the election outcome, the last court term of Trump's first term seems likely to be noted for its unpredictable twists."This is a very strange term," said Blackman. "I don't remember one quite like it."
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| Iran's Military Is Armed to the Teeth with Lots of Missiles Posted: 04 Jul 2020 06:30 AM PDT  And it has built the region's largest missile force.
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| A Nigerian Instagram star conspired to launder millions of dollars while flaunting his 'extravagant lifestyle' on social media, prosecutors allege Posted: 04 Jul 2020 12:26 PM PDT  Alleged scammer, "Ray Hushpuppi," 37, is facing charges related to his role as "key player in a large, transnational conspiracy," prosecutors said.
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| Florida breaks record with 11,458 new virus cases. Miami-Dade and Broward hit highs, too Posted: 04 Jul 2020 08:33 AM PDT  Saturday's update on new confirmed COVID-19 cases from the Florida Department of Health reflected the state, Miami-Dade and Broward record new single-day highs, rocketing past previous peaks.
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| Army Specialist Killed in Afghanistan Vehicle Rollover Accident Posted: 04 Jul 2020 07:17 PM PDT  A 21-year-old soldier from Texas was killed Friday in southwestern Afghanistan, Pentagon officials announced Saturday night.
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| Sturgeon urged to condemn 'abhorrent' border protests urging English to stay out of Scotland Posted: 05 Jul 2020 03:34 AM PDT  Nicola Sturgeon is under pressure to condemn "disgraceful" border protests where nationalists in hazmat suits urged English visitors to stay away from Scotland. Jackson Carlaw, the Scottish Conservative leader, said he was concerned that the scenes on Saturday would deter people from coming to Scotland and cause further damage to the country's tourism sector, which has been devastated by coronavirus. A handful of nationalists turned up at the border over the weekend, urging motorists to "stay out". Waving saltires and SNP flags, they displayed a banner stating 'keep Scotland Covid free'.
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| Coronavirus funerals: Sri Lanka's Muslims decry forced cremation Posted: 04 Jul 2020 09:49 PM PDT  Sri Lankan authorities insist on cremation for coronavirus victims. Some Muslims says its discrimination.
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| Puerto Rico hit by 2 earthquakes in latest in series of tremors Posted: 04 Jul 2020 08:21 AM PDT  Puerto Rico was shaken by two strong earthquakes on Friday, but the island reported zero injuries in the latest series of tremors.
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| Prehistoric ochre mining operation found in submerged Mexican caves Posted: 03 Jul 2020 07:04 PM PDT  Researchers diving into dark submerged caves on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula have found evidence of an ambitious mining operation starting 12,000 years ago and lasting two millennia for red ochre, an earth mineral pigment prized by prehistoric peoples. The caves were not underwater at the time of the mining. The mining was undertaken as human populations first spread through the region.
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| Eric Trump's tweet vanishes after his attempt to spread Clinton-Epstein connection backfires Posted: 03 Jul 2020 02:45 PM PDT  Eric Trump's attempt to associate Bill Clinton with Ghislaine Maxwell did not go unnoticed by some people.
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| Great Power Showdown: How U.S. Navy Submarines Are Countering Chinese Expansion Posted: 05 Jul 2020 02:30 AM PDT  Let's take a look.
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| Mexico's COVID deaths pass 30,000, world's 5th highest total Posted: 04 Jul 2020 02:48 PM PDT  Mexico topped 30,000 COVID-19 deaths Saturday, overtaking France as the country with the fifth-highest death toll since the coronavirus outbreak began. Officials reported 523 more confirmed coronavirus deaths for the day, bringing the nation's total to 30,366 for the pandemic. Mexico's total confirmed infections rose by almost 6,000 to 251,165, about on par with Spain, the eighth highest caseload.
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| Sudan says talks on Nile dam resumed with Egypt, Ethiopia Posted: 03 Jul 2020 03:06 PM PDT  Sudan announced Friday the resumption of talks with Egypt and Ethiopia to resolve the long-running dispute over Addis Ababa's construction of a mega-dam on the Nile River. The three countries have been at odds after multiple rounds of talks over the years failed to produce a deal on the operation and filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. Ethiopia says the project is essential for its development, while Egypt and Sudan worry about access to vital water supplies from the Nile.
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| Japan flooding: Fourteen dead in flooded care home Posted: 05 Jul 2020 02:26 AM PDT  At least 16 people have died and a dozen are missing on the island of Kyushu amid devastating rains.
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| Third highest single-day total, 10,059, pushes Florida past 200,000 COVID-19 cases Posted: 05 Jul 2020 09:28 AM PDT  It took three months, from early March to June 22, for Florida to cross 100,000 new confirmed COVID-19 cases.
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| Mainland China reports eight new coronavirus cases, two in Beijing Posted: 04 Jul 2020 06:24 PM PDT  China recorded eight new coronavirus cases for July 4, up from with three a day earlier, the national health authority said on Sunday, while city officials in Beijing said nearly all the cases in a recent outbreak in the capital were mild. Of the new cases, six were imported and two were in Beijing, which has been scrambling to quash an outbreak traced to a massive wholesale market in the city early last month. In Beijing, 47% of the 334 confirmed cases since June 11 were staff at the Xinfadi market, Pang Xinghuo, a senior Beijing disease control official, told a media briefing on Sunday.
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| Moscow Has a Field Day With Trump’s Fireworks at Mt. Russia-More Posted: 05 Jul 2020 07:50 AM PDT  Kremlin-controlled Russian state media set out to tickle U.S. President Trump's fragile ego amid falling ratings after his blustery appearance at Mount Rushmore on Friday. Mentioning that the American head of state had previously toyed with the idea he might be featured alongside Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Lincoln, Russia's premier state media channel Rossiya-1 aired a graphic of Trump's mug right up there on the mountain beside them. Given the frequent allusions on Russian state media to Trump as Moscow's friend, even Moscow's "agent" in the White House, maybe the Kremlin would like to see the enormous monument renamed Mount Russia-More. But there were signs on Saturday, July 4, that, for now, Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are trying to keep their longstanding bromance in check, at least where the official record is concerned. Putin sent a telegram congratulating U.S. President Donald J. Trump on America's Independence Day. Interesting move. By avoiding a phone call Putin also avoided any direct pressure to address reports about the Kremlin paying bounties to the Taliban to kill American soldiers and coalition forces in Afghanistan.Prior to the bounty leaks flooding out of the U.S. intelligence community, the calls between Trump and Putin had become unusually frequent, but those revelations put the brakes on the presidential chatter. Trump Uses Mount Rushmore Event to Sic Supporters on 'Evil' ProtestersTrump—who is at least as reluctant as Putin to discuss the matter—had also avoided calling to congratulate him on Russia's nationwide vote for constitutional amendments that assure Putin the Russian presidency for life.The Kremlin described the vote as a "triumphant referendum" demonstrating nationwide confidence in Putin. But only a handful of foreign leaders called to congratulate him, and as they rang in from the presidents of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan and South Ossetia the impression of Putin as pariah for life was only heightened. While Trump was likely given a "Do not congratulate" input from his national security advisors, the old Chekist Putin can most certainly read between the lines. After all, Trump notoriously took Putin's side in Helsinki, denied Russia's proven interference in the U.S. elections, essentially abandoned U.S. bases in Syria for the benefit of the Russians, toyed publicly and divisively with the idea of re-admitting Russia to the G8, and threatened to remove nearly a third of U.S. troops from Germany—a midsummer night's dream for Putin.Trump-centric Fox News and the GOP follow the lead of America's most pro-Russian president, churning out talking points that increasingly benefit the Kremlin. Russian state media have aired so many of Tucker Carlson's comments that the host of Russia's state television program 60 Minutes Evgeny Popov lovingly described Carlson as "practically our co-host." Likewise, instead of concocting its own divisive propaganda, TASS simply quotes Devin Nunes and Mike Pompeo, both of whom sought to find and punish the leakers who exposed the Kremlin's alleged cash for kills program instead punishing Russia for putting a price on the heads of American soldiers.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Iran: A Budding Drone Superpower? You Decide. Posted: 04 Jul 2020 09:27 AM PDT  The Iranian Defense Ministry announced that it has acquired three new drones that are capable of flying almost 1,000 miles and from an altitude of up to 45,000 feet
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| The WHO changed its coronavirus timeline to say it got its first report about the virus on the internet, not from Chinese authorities Posted: 05 Jul 2020 04:03 AM PDT  The agency says its China office found out about the "viral pneumonia" cases from reading an online press release from the Wuhan health commission.
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| Keeping COVID-19 outside of camps is a near impossible challenge Posted: 05 Jul 2020 05:25 AM PDT  Campers and staff promise to isolate before they arrive at camp but in several cases the pandemic has arrived with them.
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| Philippine officials faked data showing ex-Wirecard exec in country Posted: 04 Jul 2020 03:16 AM PDT  Philippine immigration officers falsified records to show ex-Wirecard executive Jan Marsalek briefly visited the country after he was sacked from the collapsed German payments processor, the justice minister said Saturday. German and Philippine authorities want to question the former chief operating officer as part of their separate investigations into the Wirecard accounting scandal, but his whereabouts are unclear. Entries in the Bureau of Immigration database show Marsalek arrived in the Philippines on June 23 -- the day after he was fired -- and left for China on June 24.
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| Belgian king's 'apology' for brutal colonial Congo stirs calls for reparations Posted: 04 Jul 2020 12:56 AM PDT  Congolese politicians have demanded Belgium pays the DRC reparations after the Belgian King expressed remorse for the brutal colonial occupation of the African country for the first time. King Philippe offered his "deepest regrets" in a letter to DRC president Felix Tshisekedi on the 60th anniversary of independence on Tuesday and as the Black Lives Matter movement is forcing Belgians to examine the past. Philippe's great-great-great uncle Leopold II ruled a region containing the whole of the DRC as a private rubber-producing slave state. More than ten million Africans are estimated to have died in a "forgotten Holocaust". He was forced to surrender direct control of the Congo Free State in 1908 and Belgium formally annexed it, calling it the Belgian Congo until independence in 1960. Pierre Kompany, who is Belgium's first black mayor and moved to the country from the DRC as a child, praised King Philippe. "In 60 years no one has done what he has done. In the 60 years since independence, he is the first to express his deep regrets," Mr Kompany, who has faced racist death threats since becoming mayor of Ganshoren in Brussels, said. "We must take that in a positive way and advance forward together," the father of footballer Vincent Kompany told the Sunday Telegraph.
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| Mainstream media ignores arrest of 'ringleader' of DC statue attacks Posted: 04 Jul 2020 04:57 AM PDT  Reaction from Joe Concha, media reporter for The Hill.
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| South Carolina: Two dead and eight injured after US nightclub shooting Posted: 05 Jul 2020 04:03 AM PDT  Two people have died and eight have been injured after a shooting at a nightclub in South Carolina in the early hours of Sunday, a sheriff's official said.A pair of Greenville County sheriff's deputies noticed a disturbance at Lavish Lounge just before 2am, and saw a large crowd running out of the building, Sheriff Hobart Lewis said at a press conference.
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| Florida, Texas post daily COVID-19 records as 'positivity' rates climb Posted: 04 Jul 2020 08:27 AM PDT  For a sixth straight day, Texas also registered an all-time high in the number of people hospitalized with the highly contagious respiratory illness - 7,890 patients after 238 new admissions over the past 24 hours. By comparison, New York state - the U.S. epicenter of the outbreak months ago, reported just 844 hospitalizations on Saturday, far below the nearly 19,000 hospital beds occupied by COVID-19 patients at the peak of its coronavirus crisis. During the first four days of July alone, a total of 14 states have posted a daily record increases in the number of individuals testing positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus that has killed nearly 130,000 Americans.
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| Somalia restaurant attack: Six killed by al-Shabab Posted: 04 Jul 2020 07:24 AM PDT  Militant group al-Shabab said it carried out the bomb explosion in the town of Baidoa.
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