Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
No injuries reported after 130 firefighters tackle blaze
SS Jeremiah O’Brien is among tourist attractions on piers
A huge fire engulfed a warehouse on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco early on Saturday, sending a thick plume of smoke over the waterfront and threatening to spread to a historic second world war ship before firefighters brought the flames under control.
No injuries were reported but firefighters were making multiple searches to ensure no one was inside the building on Pier 45, San Francisco Fire Lt Jonathan Baxter told reporters.
Member states have backed a resolution strongly supportive of the World Health Organization, after Donald Trump issued a fresh broadside against the UN body, giving it 30 days to make unspecified reforms or lose out on US funding.
Around 200 escaped goats stormed residential streets of San Jose, California, after breaking through a fence. The goats were rounded up and under control within minutes but 'everyone had to spend the next hour or so picking up their poop', Zach Roelands, a local resident, said.
Animals storm residential area of San Jose after breaking through a fence in incident caught on video
Nature is healing, and in some parts of northern California, nature is revolting.
About 200 goats broke through a fence in San Jose and briefly stormed the streets of a residential neighborhood on Tuesday evening, in clear violation of social distancing guidelines as well as the state shelter-in-place order.
Mike Garcia will replace Hill, who resigned amid scandal in 2019 after securing the first Democratic victory in district in decades
Republican Mike Garcia has beat Democrat Christy Smith in the special election to fill the seat of the former US representative Katie Hill, who resigned amid scandal in late 2019.
After a bitter political battle complicated and constrained by the pandemic, Garcia’s win was a blow for Democrats who in 2018 had secured the suburban Los Angeles district for the first time in since 1990. But the candidates will soon have a rematch. Garcia will serve only five months before the seat is up for a vote again in November.
Rick Bright, former director of a key office in the Department of Health and Human Services, will testify in front of the Senate tomorrow that the Trump administration was unprepared for the coronavirus pandemic and there will be dramatic consequences if the US fails to develop a national coordinated response, reports CNN.
Documents of the prepared testimony indicate that Bright will tell Congress that he fears “the pandemic will get far worse and be prolonged” without a response “based in science”.
Republican Maryland governor Larry Hogan and Democratic New York governor Andrew Cuomo released a joint statement today as the leaders of the National Governors Association asking Congress to deliver “urgent state fiscal relief” to address the soaring costs states are bearing because of the Covid-19 crisis.
Maryland Gov. Hogan (R) and New York Gov. Cuomo (D) urge Congress to send aid to states. “This is not a red state or blue state crisis. This is a red white and blue pandemic. The coronavirus is apolitical. It does not attack Democrats or Republicans. It attacks Americans.” pic.twitter.com/1kkSw3USey
Mike Garcia leading in California’s special election while Tom Tiffany easily won a special congressional election in Wisconsin
Republicans appeared on track for a pair of congressional wins on Wednesday, after notching an easy victory in a Wisconsin House seat and appearing poised to take a seat away from the Democrats in California.
The wins would be seen as a boost to the party and President Donald Trump, whose re-election campaign has been battered by outrage over his response to the coronavirus pandemic and whose popularity has been dipping in many recent polls.
Trump accusations shed light on how he could use the Covid-19 pandemic to undermine the results of the November election
Donald Trump falsely accused Democrats of trying to “steal” Tuesday’s special election in California amid the Covid-19 pandemic by adding a polling place in one of the most diverse sections of a district.
But the county actually added the polling location at the request of the area’s Republican mayor.
CEO announces electric carmaker will begin production on Monday after company sues county over Covid-19 restrictions
Elon Musk announced on Twitter that Tesla would resume production at its northern California factory on Monday afternoon, in defiance of a local public health order designed to slow the spread of coronavirus.
“Tesla is restarting production today against Alameda County rules,” the billionaire CEO tweeted. “I will be on the line with everyone else. If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me.”
Unknown shark species attacked 26-year-old man surfing on northern end of Monterey Bay, state park officials say
A surfer was killed in a shark attack off a northern California beach, state park officials said on Saturday.
The 26-year-old man was surfing off Manresa State Beach on the northern end of Monterey Bay at around 1.30pm when he was attacked by an unknown shark species, the California State Parks said in a statement.
Trump’s mention of tapes in his extraordinary references, in a live phone call into Fox News, to how he learned from Richard Nixon is interesting, to say the least.
“When I fired Comey, you know what hit the fan,” Trump on Fox News. "I study history," including on Nixon. "Of course, there was one difference. ... #1 he may have been guilty. And #2 he had tapes all over the place. I wasn’t guilty. I did nothing wrong. And there were no tapes.” https://t.co/xJIkEuPY7O
Trump tweeted: “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”
The tweet, which if taken at face value would suggest Trump has been secretly taping White House meetings, came after the New York Times reported that he demanded “loyalty” from Comey in a private dinner held shortly after Trump took office.
Here’s transcript of Trump’s full comments about Richard Nixon during his call in to Fox News this morning.
Here's the transcript of Trump's comments this morning about what he learned from Richard Nixon. (Of course, Trump did fire a bunch of people.) pic.twitter.com/Ltl8WKvTPe
Republican senator Lamar Alexander said that Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and House speaker Nancy Pelosi should accept Trump’s offer to make rapid coronavirus testing available to lawmakers.
“From a public health point of view, this is not mostly about protecting members of Congress. It is about protecting the people members might infect. Bringing 100 or 535 members from across the country to Washington, D.C.—a coronavirus hotspot—and then sending them home each weekend creates a highly efficient virus spreading machine,” Alexander said in a new statement.
Trump’s press secretary has responded to the vice president’s comments that the White House is looking to wind down the coronavirus task force in the coming weeks.
Press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the White House would still be “involving medical experts” in decisions related to the coronavirus response.
Reporting on the task force is being misconstrued to suggest the White House is no longer involving medical experts. This is totally false.
President @realDonaldTrump will continue his data-driven approach towards safely re-opening.
Crowds are coming to see the light show as beaches begin to reopen after an almost month-long closure due to coronavirus
Mother nature has provided a radical gift to nighttime beach-goers in southern California, in the form of bioluminescent waves that crash and froth with an otherworldly light.
That’s all for today, thanks for following along. A recap of the day:
Senator Elizabeth Warren said today she believed Joe Biden’s comments on the sexual assault allegation were “credible and convincing”.
“I saw the reports of what Ms [Tara] Reade said, I saw an interview with vice-president Biden. I appreciate that the vice-president took a lot of questions, tough questions. And he answered them directly and respectfully. The vice-president’s answers were credible and convincing,” the senator and former presidential candidate said, according to a CNN reporter.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi was careful not to criticize Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell for calling senators back to Washington starting next week.
Pelosi and majority leader Steny Hoyer originally said the House would also return next week, but they reversed that decision after a consultation with the Capitol’s attending physician.
The office of the director of national intelligence has released an unusual statement saying officials do not believe coronavirus was manmade, echoing many health experts.
“The Intelligence Community also concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified,” the statement reads.
Sheriff’s office says boy was ‘physically resistive’
A northern California police officer is under investigation after a video went viral that captured him punching a 14-year-old black boy that he had pinned to the ground.
The video, which was posted to Twitter by the boy’s family and friends, shows an officer from Rancho Cordova, a city east of Sacramento, holding the boy in the dirt, at one point with his hand on his neck, and striking him several times in the chest.
Mike Pence’s office has dubiously argued the vice president does not need to wear a mask because he is regularly tested for coronavirus.
The vice president faced questions about his lack of mask usage earlier this month after a photo circulated of a mask-less Pence greeting Colorado governor Jared Polis, who was wearing a mask in the picture.
Vice President Mike Pence was criticized for ignoring mask guidelines when visiting the Mayo Clinic facilities in Minnesota today.
Footage of Pence’s visit showed the vice president not covering his face as he met with the clinic’s employees and at least one patient.
PENCE flouts Mayo Clinic policy that everyone on campus wear a mask, even as he meets with staff and a patient. pic.twitter.com/kfo64KQDhU
Mayo Clinic had informed @VP of the masking policy prior to his arrival today.
Photos of packed beaches in southern California over the weekend were condemned by the state governor Gavin Newsom, amid fears large crowds could reverse progress on containing Covid-19 in the US.
Many popular beaches have remained fully closed to the public, though a handful have taken steps to permit visitors in a limited capacity while adopting a range of restrictions, enforcement plans and recommendations
Dr Deborah Birx reportedly had to convince Trump to come out against Georgia’s plan to start reopening non-essential businesses this Friday.
Trump said during yesterday’s press conference that he disagreed “strongly” with Georgia governor Brian Kemp’s reopening plan, which many public health experts have warned is dangerously hasty.
At a meeting before Wednesday’s briefing, task force members discussed the likelihood of being asked about [Kemp’s] controversial move to open up many businesses such as nail salons and bowling alleys, [a White House] source added. ...
During the meeting, Dr. Anthony Fauci and other task force members said if the scientists were not in agreement with Trump on the Georgia issue during the news conference it would pose a problem.
Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer said she would likely extend the state’s stay-at-home order while looking at allowing some activties with restrictions in place, emphasizing that the state’s reopening would take place in waves.
“It will permit some activity if our numbers continue to go down and our testing continues to go up,” the Democratic governor told MSNBC this morning. “But It’s too early to say precisely what each wave looks like and when it happens.”
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer says reopening has to be "strategic and thoughtful": "I've heard governors across the country, on both sides of the aisle, say it's not going to be like flipping a light switch, we're not just going to go back to pre-Covid 19 posture" pic.twitter.com/6gGHbUkFPC
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America’s addiction to mass incarceration could almost double its number of deaths from coronavirus, with jails acting as incubators of the disease and spreading a further 100,000 fatalities across the US.
The startling warning comes from groundbreaking modeling by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and academic researchers, released on Wednesday.