Coronavirus live news: Donald Trump ‘no longer transmission risk’; Victoria to ease lockdown

Doctor says president not replicating virus, but no word on whether he has tested negative; Europe records 100,000 daily cases for first time. Follow latest updates

Mainland China reported 21 new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus on 10 October, up from 15 a day earlier, the country’s national health authority said on Sunday.

All the new cases were imported infections involving travellers from overseas, the National Health Commission said in a statement.

The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed, fell to 23 from 39 a day earlier. All of them were imported.

The total confirmed Covid-19 cases in mainland China stands at 85,557, while the death toll remained at 4,634.

In Australia, the ACT has confirmed no new coronavirus cases. From the statement sent by the ACT government:

There have been no new cases of COVID-19 recorded in the ACT in the past 24 hours, leaving the ACT’s total at 113. There are no active cases in the ACT.

A total of 110 cases have recovered from COVID-19 in the ACT.

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Coronavirus live news: Brazil records 290 deaths in 24 hours; Italy plans new restrictions

South American country has now registered 150,488 deaths; Italy moves as daily infections reach highest levels since March

Slovakia will impose stricter coronavirus restrictions from Thursday, including making face masks compulsory in public and limits to public gatherings, the country’s health ministry said on Sunday.

The government will also debate on Monday whether to limit gatherings to six people, health minister Marek Krajci said.

Brazil confirmed 290 coronavirus deaths over the last 24 hours and 12,345 new cases, the nation’s health ministry said on Sunday.

The South American country has now registered 5,094,982 total confirmed coronavirus cases and 150,488 total deaths.

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Some attendees skip masks as Trump speaks at White House event – as it happened

Here is a summary of the latest events:

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden continued to frame the November election as a choice between the interests of Scranton and Park Avenue in a speech on Saturday night at the Plumbers Local Union No 27 training center in Erie, Pennsylvania.

“Anyone who actually does an honest day’s work sees him and his promises for what they are,” Biden told a masked, socially distanced crowd at a training facility for plumbers and other tradespeople in Pennsylvania’s fourth-largest city.

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Lindsey Graham says Black people can ‘go anywhere’ in South Carolina if conservative

Republican senator made comment in televised ‘conversation’ with his rival, Jamie Harrison, who is Black

In a televised campaign event US senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said African Americans and immigrants can “go anywhere” in his home state but they “ just need to be conservative”.

Graham made the comment in a televised “conversation” with his political rival, former South Carolina Democratic party chair Jaime Harrison, the first African American to serve in the role.

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Republicans express fears Trump will lose presidential election

Ted Cruz says he’s afraid of ‘bloodbath of Watergate proportions’ as John Cornyn slams Trump for ‘creating confusion’ over Covid

Ted Cruz fears an election “bloodbath”. His fellow top Republican senator Thom Tillis is talking in terms of a Joe Biden presidency. And even Mitch McConnell, the fiercely loyal Senate majority leader, won’t go near the White House over Donald Trump’s handling of coronavirus protocols.

Individually, they could arguably be seen as off-the-cuff comments from Trump’s allies attempting to rally support for the US president just days ahead of a general election that opinion polls increasingly show him losing.

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US Covid cases climb as midwestern states report steep increases

  • Infections also ticking up in north-east
  • More than 57,000 tested positive for coronavirus on Friday

Covid-19 cases are again climbing in the United States, with the highest daily rates of new infections since August, when major states such as Florida became hotspots, new data from Johns Hopkins University’s Covid-19 tracker shows.

Now, several midwestern states are posting steep increases in Covid-19 cases, with at least one setting up a field hospital to cope with the flood of patients. Cases are also ticking up in the north-east, where tight restrictions had the virus under control for most of the summer.

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Paris Hilton leads protest calling for closure of Utah school

Socialite and reality TV star organized demonstration near Provo Canyon school after saying she suffered abuse at boarding school

Socialite and reality TV star Paris Hilton has been speaking out about abuse she said she suffered at a boarding school in Utah, and on Friday took her push nearly to the school’s front doors.

Hilton organized a protest in a park near Provo Canyon school, along with several hundreds of others who shared stories of abuse they said they suffered there or at similar schools for troubled youth. She is calling for the closure of the school.

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Who is Clare Bronfman, the Seagram’s heiress who financed Nxivm?

Bronfman was the first sentenced in connection with the group led by Keith Raniere – but while she was part of Nxivm, she used her wealth ‘as a means of intimidation’

Clare Bronfman, daughter of a billionaire Canadian father and a British mother, was making a name for herself as a showjumper in Europe in 2002.

Riding a 12-year-old gelding called Charlton, Bronfman – the heir to the Seagram’s liquor fortune – won the Rome Grand Prix equestrian tournament, and later placed second in a show in Bremen.

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Michigan terror plot: why rightwing extremists are thriving on Facebook

The platform provides tools for radicalization and coordinated violence, and critics say it’s been slow to ban dangerous groups

In a year of escalating political violence in the United States, Facebook has served as a key organizing tool for violent extremists.

An alleged plot to kidnap the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer, was planned in part on Facebook, with one leader of the scheme broadcasting a video of his frustrations with Whitmer to a private Facebook group, and participants later sharing footage of their paramilitary exercises and bomb-making training, according to an FBI affidavit.

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Second presidential debate canceled but Trump plans in-person events

  • Debate commission prepares for final debate on 22 October
  • Trump announces events despite Covid diagnosis

The second presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden has been cancelled, the Commission on Presidential Debates confirmed Friday, a move that came as the president announced his first in-person events since being diagnosed with Covid-19.

The decision by the nonpartisan commission follows a public disagreement between the two candidates over the debate’s format. The commission had previously announced the debate would take place “virtually” due to Trump’s diagnosis. Trump, however, said he would refuse to participate in a virtual event, while Biden advocated for it for safety reasons.

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A critic’s view: the delusion of Trump’s Covid-19 victory photo

President’s pose on the White House balcony was a manic act of narcissistic theatre

The trouble with Trump is that, as he told Bob Woodward, “I bring rage out.” It’s hard to see this picture of him posing maskless on the White House balcony after “winning” against Covid without the red mist coming down.

To anyone with a sense of history, the echo of Mussolini on the balcony of Rome’s Palazzo Venezia is unmistakable. But many of his core voters may know as little history as he does and, besides, this is the White House, with American flags flanking him – still for many a stage of democracy, not dictatorship. Perhaps the real shock of the pose is its delusion. There is no crowd – he’s performing for himself and the camera.

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Pelosi says Trump’s Covid medication has him ‘in an altered state’ – video

Nancy Pelosi has announced that the House will invoke the 25th amendment, which gives Congress power to evaluate the health and stability of US presidents in conducting the duties of their office. 

Although the amendment enables the House Speaker to create a commission to review the president’s fitness for office, the House of Representatives would not be able to remove Donald Trump from office without the agreement of the vice-president, Mike Pence, and members of the cabinet. 

Pelosi insisted the proposed commission was not about Trump, but said of the president: 'He is under medication. Any of us who is under medication of that seriousness is in an altered state.'

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US won’t rely on UK for Covid vaccine safety tests, says Nancy Pelosi

House speaker says UK system is not on a par with US’s ‘very stringent rules’ about vaccines

The speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, has taken aim at the British vaccine testing safety regime, warning that UK approval of a vaccine would not automatically mean it was safe according to the US’s own procedures.

Amid a race to produce an effective vaccine against Covid-19 that meets broad international acceptance for safety, Pelosi’s comments appear partly motivated by concern that any quick and unilateral British approval of a vaccine might be embraced by Donald Trump for political gain, perhaps even before the 3 November election.

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Herd immunity letter signed by fake experts including ‘Dr Johnny Bananas’

Open letter calling for new Covid-19 strategy also signed by ‘Prof Cominic Dummings’

An open letter that made headlines calling for a herd immunity approach to Covid-19 lists a number of apparently fake names among its expert signatories, including “Dr Johnny Bananas” and “Professor Cominic Dummings”.

The Great Barrington declaration, which was said to have been signed by more than 15,000 scientists and medical practitioners around the world, was found by Sky News to contain numerous false names, as well as those of several homeopaths.

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Gretchen Whitmer accuses Donald Trump of inciting domestic terror

  • Michigan governor targeted by alleged far-right kidnapping plot
  • Tweets attacking Whitmer creating ‘very dangerous situation’

The Michigan governor who was the target of a foiled rightwing kidnapping plot said on Friday that Donald Trump’s rhetoric “incites more domestic terror”, after the president posted a series of aggressive tweets overnight that sought to shame the victim of the plot.

Related: How the domestic terror plot to kidnap Michigan's governor unravelled

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Trump unlikely to travel for weekend rally as Pelosi says medication has him ‘in an altered state’ – live

Reports are coming out that Donald Trump will not hold campaign events over the weekend but is planning on heading back to the trail on Monday.

.@FoxNews is told @realDonaldTrump will likely not have campaign events this weekend, but is planning to be back on the trail on Monday.

The Supreme Court announced that it will hear oral arguments for cases virtually in November and December and will provide live audio feed of the hearings. The court will follow the same format it has been using for its new term starting this month.

The justices have not heard arguments in person since early March. In a press release, the court said it will determine plans for January’s arguments soon.

JUST IN Due to COVID-19 #SCOTUS announces they'll hear oral arguments for November & December via teleconference with live audio. pic.twitter.com/4X4HcVmKfm

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Thai hotel agrees to drop charges against US man who faced jail over bad reviews

  • Koh Chang hotel to drop charges in exchange for public apology
  • Wesley Barnes held under defamation and computer crime laws

A hotel in Thailand has agreed to drop charges against an American guest who faced up to five years in jail for posting negative reviews – as long as he issues a public apology for his comments.

The hotel, on the holiday island of Koh Chang, filed a complaint against American teacher Wesley Barnes in August after he posted what the hotel said were false and defamatory write-ups after a row over a 500 baht ($16) corkage fee.

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Inside the climate battle quietly raging about US homes

Away from the headlines, there’s an important fight happening that is pitting real estate developers and utilities against efforts to make America’s new homes more climate friendly

Some challenges to US climate action are obvious – like when Donald Trump boasts about leaving the international Paris agreement and rolling back pollution rules.

But many more play out behind the scenes. One of those is the battle over efforts to make America’s new homes and buildings more energy-efficient.

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Stephen King, Margaret Atwood and Roxane Gay champion trans rights in open letter

With more than 1,200 co-signatories in North America including Neil Gaiman and NK Jemisin, message follows row over comments by JK Rowling

Stephen King and Margaret Atwood are among the signatories to an open letter offering support to the trans and non-binary communities of the US and Canada, as a bitter divide over trans rights continues to split the literary world.

The message from writers and members of the US literary community follows a similar letter from authors in the UK and Ireland. Both letters come in the wake of a fierce row over JK Rowling’s comments on trans rights, including her comment that “if sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased”.

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Coronavirus live news: Spain imposes state of emergency in Madrid; Europe records 100,000 daily cases for first time

Court had struck down lockdown measures in Spanish capital; Cases in Europe have been steadily rising over the past week

US President Donald Trump has approved a revised Covid-19 relief stimulus, White House Economic Advisor Larry Kudlow has said.

Stocks immediately rallied on the news, Bloomberg News tweets, while the president himself (or one of his staff) has has also been on Twitter in the last few minutes

Covid Relief Negotiations are moving along. Go Big!

Related: Pelosi says medication has Trump 'in an altered state' in 25th amendment bid – live

Most people in the UK who have Covid-19 or are a contact of somebody who has tested positive fail to fully self-isolate, despite its necessity in preventing a resurgence of the pandemic, according to government advisors.

Newly released papers reveal that behavioural science experts privately warned last month that only 18-25% of people who needed to were self-isolating. Others were still going out to work or to shop, even though they risked infecting others, according to the details of the briefing for ministers by the UK government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) .

Related: Coronavirus: at least three-quarters of people in UK fail to self-isolate

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