Category Archives: US News

Why is coronavirus still surging in the US? – video explainer

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The US recorded a new all-time daily high of 52,000 new Covid-19 cases on 1 July, according to Johns Hopkins University figures, as Donald Trump repeated his belief the virus would ‘just disappear’.

America has now had more than 2.7 million confirmed cases - more than double that of Brazil, the second most-affected country. Dr Anthony Fauci, the US’s top infectious disease expert, has said the country is ‘going in the wrong direction’, infections could more than double and the subsequent death toll ‘is going to be very disturbing’.

The Guardian’s Ed Pilkington looks at why a patchwork approach to lifting lockdowns, as well as the president’s mixed messages on wearing a mask, have led to confusion across the country and why some states are having to clamp down

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$10bn of precious metals dumped each year in electronic waste, says UN

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A fast growing mountain of toxic e-waste is polluting the planet and damaging health, says new report

At least $10bn (£7.9bn) worth of gold, platinum and other precious metals are dumped every year in the growing mountain of electronic waste that is polluting the planet, according to a new UN report.

A record 54m tonnes of “e-waste” was generated worldwide in 2019, up 21% in five years, the UN’s Global E-waste Monitor report found. The 2019 figure is equivalent to 7.3kg for every man, woman and child on Earth, though use is concentrated in richer nations. The amount of e-waste is rising three times faster than the world’s population, and only 17% of it was recycled in 2019.

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US setting new coronavirus case records as ‘Russian bounty’ row continues – live updates

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Meanwhile, there’s breaking news from the Supreme Court, via The Washington Post (added bolds from me):

A lower court had granted a request from the House Judiciary Committee for access to redacted portions of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. But in May, the Supreme Court put a hold on that ruling until the high court could decide whether the issue warranted its intervention.

On the campaign trail and often in public remarks about economic news the president has promised that the final two quarters of 2020 would be a substantial improvement from earlier numbers.

He made that argument again at this press conference.

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Coronavirus live news: Sweden’s cases pass 70,000; Tokyo confirms highest new case tally in two months

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Sweden records 947 new cases in a day; Russia cases pass 660,000; Indonesia reports record daily infections rise; Middle East at ‘critical threshold’ says WHO

US president Donald Trump celebrated a government report showing the country gained 4.8m jobs and the unemployment rate dropped to 11.1% last month, when states began allowing businesses to reopen from strict shutdowns aimed at containing the coronavirus pandemic.

“Today’s announcement proves that our economy is roaring back,” Trump said, rattling off different sectors that saw job gains according to the monthly report.

Oman’s health minister said the sultanate has witnessed a “scary” surge in Covid-19 cases that required boosting hospital capacity, especially for intensive care units.

The country reported another 1,361 new cases of the coronavirus on Thursday and three deaths in the last 24 hours, to take its total count to 42,555 cases with 188 deaths.

In the last six weeks there has been a radical change which is very disturbing and scary.

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Ghislaine Maxwell arrested by FBI on charges related to Jeffrey Epstein

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Maxwell had kept a low profile and her whereabouts were unknown since Epstein’s arrest last July on sex trafficking charges

Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite and close friend of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has been arrested, an FBI spokesman has said.

Maxwell was accused by many women of recruiting them to give Epstein massages, during which they were pressured into sex. Those accusations, until now, never resulted in criminal charges.

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Trump has ‘gone awol’ as president amid coronavirus pandemic, says ex-CIA director

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Leon Panetta becomes latest prominent public figure to accuse Trump of effectively surrendering to the virus and abandoning Americans to their fate

Donald Trump has “essentially gone awol from the job of leadership that he should be providing a country in trouble” during the coronavirus pandemic, a former defence secretary and CIA director said on Wednesday.

Related: US setting new coronavirus case records as 'Russian bounty' row continues - live updates

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How we can truly repay our frontline health workers: clear their debts | Alissa Quart, Astra Taylor And Brittany M Powell

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Many of the workers risking their lives amid the pandemic are burdened with student debt. We owe them more than just applause

Every day at 7pm, New Yorkers have cheered, applauded and banged pots and pans for frontline workers. One of those they have cheered for is Shana-Kay Henry, a physician assistant in the city, who, like thousands of others, is praised as a hero for her brave caretaking efforts during the pandemic.

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Donald Trump calls allegations of Russian bounty on US soldiers ‘a hoax’ – video

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US president Donald Trump has played down allegations Russia paid bounties to the Taliban to kill coalition forces in Afghanistan, claiming it’s a hoax by ‘the newspapers and the Democrats’. Trump initially said he had not been told of the allegations, while the White House later claimed there was no consensus in the intelligence community over the reports’ veracity

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Trump claims ‘Russian bounty’ story is hoax as pressure for answers grows – live updates

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Donald Trump is criticizing New York City’s plan to paint “Black Lives Matter” on 5th Avenue outside Trump Tower — calling it a “symbol of hate.”

NYC is cutting Police $’s by ONE BILLION DOLLARS, and yet the @NYCMayor is going to paint a big, expensive, yellow Black Lives Matter sign on Fifth Avenue, denigrating this luxury Avenue. This will further antagonize New York’s Finest, who LOVE New York & vividly remember the....

National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien has said that both the CIA and Pentagon did pursue intelligence assessments that suggested Russia had offered bounties for killing US troops in Afghanistan, and that US intelligence briefed international allies, as the administration steps up its defense of the handling of the military bounty scandal.

“We had options ready to go,” O’Brien said on a Fox news show. But added: “It may be impossible to get to the bottom of it.”

American servicemembers are being targeted with Russian bounties. As a Marine, I'm disgusted that nothing's been done about it. Mitch, you get regular security briefings. What did you know and when did you know it?

Man up and tell the truth. #MoscowMitch

Analysis: The only people dismissing the Russia bounties intel: The Taliban, Russia and Trump https://t.co/hbWx8PitRX

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Global report: first tourists arrive in Greece as Brazil passes 60,000 deaths

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Spain and Portugal reopen border as global tourism industry predicted to lose up to £2.6tn

The first tourist flights in four months landed on the Greek island of Crete, and Spain and Portugal reopened their land border as European countries continued to ease travel restrictions, as Brazil recorded 60,000 deaths.

A charter plane carrying 172 passengers from Hamburg landed at Heraklion airport on Crete at 8am, minutes after another aircraft had arrived from the Czech Republic, re-establishing the island’s air links with the outside world.

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US reports record one-day increase in Covid-19 cases as Trump stays silent

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Concerns mount over Trump’s handling of the crisis as he posts erratic tweets attacking the media and Democrats

The US recorded more than 44,000 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, a new record one-day increase as it struggles with the pandemic, while concerns mount over Donald Trump’s handling of the crisis and his recent silence on the issue.

Eight states reported new single-day highs of freshly diagnosed cases, and the dire numbers follow a warning by the public health expert Dr Anthony Fauci that the US is “going in the wrong direction” and infections could more than double, to reach 100,000 cases a day.

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Revealed: Covid-19 outbreaks at meat-processing plants in US being kept quiet

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Testing has found positive cases at North Carolina facilities, but officials refuse to release the information

A chicken processing facility in western North Carolina reportedly underwent widespread testing for Covid-19 in early June.

Workers at the plant were scared. Several employees had already tested positive and the company, Case Farms – which has been repeatedly condemned for animal treatment and workers’ rights violations – was not providing proper protective equipment.

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Coronavirus live news: Brazil death toll exceeds 60,000; West Bank goes into lockdown

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Global tourism stands to lose up to $3.3tn, says UN; Ryanair pilots take pay cut to avoid job losses; tourist flights to Greece resume; global cases pass 10.5m

The US has suffered 560 more deaths and registered another 43,644 cases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said, taking the respective totals to 127,299 and 2,624,873.

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Governor signs historic bill to remove Confederate emblem from Mississippi flag – live

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Colorado, Utah and Oklahoma are having primaries today.

Here’s what we’re watching:

Bernie Sanders wants lawmakers to cut the US military budget by 10%. In an opinion piece published in the Guardian, he writes:

At this unprecedented moment in American history – a terrible pandemic, an economic meltdown, people marching across the country to end systemic racism and police brutality, growing income and wealth inequality and an unstable president in the White House – now is the time to bring people together to fundamentally alter our national priorities and rethink the very structure of American society.

In that regard, I have been disturbed that for too long, Democrats and Republicans have joined together in passing outrageously high military budgets while ignoring the needs of the poorest people in our society. If we are serious about altering our national priorities, then there is no better place to begin with than taking a hard look at the bloated $740bn military budget that is coming up for a vote in the Senate this week.

Related: A 10% cut to the US military budget would help support struggling Americans | Bernie Sanders

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US urges allies to maintain UN embargo on arms sales to Iran

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Mike Pompeo opposes lifting embargo, which is due to end in October, citing risk to stability

A US attempt to destroy the Iran nuclear deal, reimpose sanctions and extend a UN embargo on arms sales to Iran risks a “generational setback for the cause of multilateralism and international law”, Iran’s foreign minister has told the UN security council.

Russia’s ambassador to the UN also said the latest US moves to isolate Tehran was like “putting its knee to the neck of the Iranian people”. Vassily Nebenzia described the policy as “a maximum suffocation policy” and said the US’s goal was to make Iran the scapegoat for an uncontrollable escalation in the Middle East.

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Trump views US troops as disposable – the Russian bounty scandal makes that clear | Simon Tisdall

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Time and again, the president has failed to protect military personnel. For Trump, he always comes first, no matter who dies

Donald Trump likes to suggest he has got the back of US soldiers battling America’s foes around the world. It was a big theme of his 2016 campaign and his West Point speech earlier this month. So great was his boundless care for America’s fighting men and women, he said, that he would halt the endless, costly foreign wars prosecuted by his predecessors – and bring them home.

Related: Trump's ties to Putin under fresh scrutiny in wake of Russia bounty reports

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Three asylum seekers at camp near US border test positive for coronavirus

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Advocates have long worried about potential for an outbreak at Matamoros camp, where an estimated 2,000 migrants live

Three asylum seekers have tested positive for coronavirus in a sprawling border encampment, marking the first cases in a settlement that advocates have long viewed as vulnerable amid the pandemic.

Since confirmed cases of coronavirus in Mexico began rising in March, advocates and government officials have worried about the potential for an outbreak in the Matamoros camp, where an estimated 2,000 migrants live in tents on the banks of the Rio Grande river.

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Trump’s ties to Putin under fresh scrutiny in wake of Russia bounty reports

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Donald Trump is facing renewed questions over his relationship with Vladimir Putin after reports that he was briefed in writing in February that Russia paid bounties for the deaths of US soldiers in Afghanistan.

Related: 'Russian bounties' intelligence was in Trump written daily briefing – reports

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‘We are not in total control’: Fauci issues stark coronavirus warning – video

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Dr Anthony Fauci, the White House infectious diseases expert gave a stark warning to the public of a dangerous surge in coronavirus cases in the US, particularly in the south and west.

Fauci said the current figures ‘speak for themselves’ in the middle of his testimony to the US Senate in response to Senator Elizabeth Warren’s questioning on the spread of the virus as states reopened

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Record Covid-19 cases in California as some countries prepare for ‘universal’ testing

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LA closes beaches and businesses as hospitals fill up while Bavaria announces ‘test offensive’

California has reported record new infections following its reopening as Los Angeles county ordered all beaches closed for 4 July and the re-shuttering of some businesses.

Amid warnings hospitals were filling up and others could run out of intensive care beds in the coming weeks, the state broke its record on Monday for the highest number of new coronavirus cases reported in a single day, with more than 8,000 – the third time in eight days the state has broken a record for new cases.

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