Footage suggests Trump was short of breath during maskless photo op at White House – video

After a three-day stay at a military hospital to treat symptoms of coronavirus, a contagious Donald Trump returned to the White House and immediately took off his face mask while posing for cameras.

Video footage suggests the US president was experiencing laboured breathing during part of the photo op in which he also gave two thumbs up and saluted as he watched Marine One lift off from the south lawn. 

Trump later waved and walked inside, where masked staff were visible, only to reemerge for what appeared to be a film shoot. In the film, which he tweeted soon after, Trump offered some bizarrely contrary advice about the virus, which has killed more than 200,000 Americans: 'Don’t let it dominate you. Don’t be afraid of it. You’re gonna beat it'

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Donald Trump’s desperation to leave hospital shows the dangers ahead

The president’s carelessness about others’ safety shows he will do almost anything not to lose in November

The desperation that has driven Donald Trump to leave hospital prematurely and theatrically pull off his mask on the White House balcony while in the throes of coronavirus infection gives some measure of how dangerous the next four weeks will be.

Many students of Trump’s life and career have warned that he would be prepared to sacrifice anyone – even those closest to him – to spare himself the humiliation of a one-term presidency, but even they surely could not have anticipated how literal that sacrifice would be.

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How the long fight for slavery reparations is slowly being won

In a suburb of Chicago, the world’s first government-funded slavery reparations programme is beginning. Robin Rue Simmons helped make it happen – but her victory has been more than 200 years in the making

It began with an email. On an especially cold day in Evanston, Illinois, in February 2019, Robin Rue Simmons, 43 years old and two years into her first term as alderman for the city’s historically Black 5th ward, sent an email whose effects would eventually make US history. The message to the nine-member equity and empowerment commission of the Evanston city council started with a disarmingly matter-of-fact heading: “Because ‘reparations’ makes people uncomfortable.”

She continued:

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Contagious Trump removes mask for photos upon return from hospital

President poses near his staff and downplays threat of virus after three days at military medical center

A contagious Donald Trump returned to the White House on Monday and immediately took off his face mask for a photo op, despite being in close proximity to his staff.

After a three-day stay at a military hospital to treat symptoms of coronavirus, the US president stepped off the Marine One helicopter just before 7pm and walked up the south portico staircase. He stopped in front of an illuminated entrance with four US flags, turned to face the south lawn – and brazenly removed his mask while posing for cameras.

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John McAfee, antivirus software pioneer, charged with tax evasion in US

Entrepreneur has been arrested in Spain after US prosecutors alleged he hid millions, including in assets such as real estate and a yacht

John McAfee, the antivirus software entrepreneur, has been charged with evading taxes after failing to report millions earned promoting cryptocurrencies, consulting work, speaking engagements and the sale of the rights to his life story for a documentary, US prosecutors have alleged.

McAfee hid assets from the Internal Revenue Service, including real estate property, a vehicle and a yacht, in the names of other people, prosecutors said.

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‘Don’t be afraid of it’: Trump removes mask as he returns to White House – video

Donald Trump has returned to the White House following his hospital stay at the Walter Reed Medical Center. He removed his surgical mask on the White House balcony and recorded a video message telling people not to be afraid of Covid-19. 'Don't let it dominate you, don't be afraid of it, you're going to beat it,' the US president said. 'I know there's a risk, there's a danger but that's OK'. He suggested he may now be immune to the disease though he added he did not know. 

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‘Listen to the scientists’: Biden urges Trump to support mask wearing – video

Speaking in Miami, US presidential nominee Joe Biden said he was glad to see his rival Donald Trump's recovery from coronavirus but made a plea for the president to take mask wearing seriously. 

'Now that he’s busy tweeting campaign messages, I would ask him to do this: listen to the scientists. Support masks. Support a mask mandate nationwide,' Biden said. 

Trump mocked Biden for his mask-wearing habits during last week's presidential debate, before testing positive for coronavirus. 

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White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany tests positive for coronavirus – live

A fascinating dispatch from Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair, who cites “two Republicans briefed on the family conversations” in reporting that Donald Trump Jr is worried by his dad’s car-ride-and-tweet-storm response to being hospitalised with Covid-19:

‘Don Jr has said he wants to stage an intervention, but Jared and Ivanka keep telling Trump how great he’s doing,’ a source said. Don Jr is said to be reluctant to confront his father alone. ‘Don said, ‘I’m not going to be the only one to tell him he’s acting crazy,’’ the source added.

One area where the family seems united is over the president’s manic tweeting early Monday morning. After Trump sent out more than a dozen all-caps tweets, the Trump children told people they want Trump to stop. ‘They’re all worried. They’ve tried to get him to stop tweeting,’ a source close to the family told me.

…Trump’s father, Fred Trump Sr, insisted on working even after his Alzheimer’s disease advanced in the 1990s … Every day Fred Sr would go to the office in Brooklyn and they would give him blank papers to sort through and sign. The phone on Fred’s desk was set up so that it could only dial out to his secretary. “Fred pretended to work,” the family friend said.

A new Times/Siena survey has Joe Biden ahead of Donald Trump in Arizona, a traditionally conservative state-turned presidential battleground.

Biden leads Trump 49% to 41% in Arizona, with just 6% of likely voters saying they were undecided. He is buoyed by his lopsided support among Hispanics, women and young people. The candidates are effectively tied in their support among seniors, a critical voting block in the state that has soured on Trump amid the Covid-19 outbreak.

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Coronavirus: Europe struggles to contain surge of cases

Rise in infection rate in Paris as Spanish authorities clash over Madrid lockdown

Bars in Paris have been ordered to close for two weeks, Madrid residents may no longer leave their city and Ireland is set to introduce tighter national restrictions as governments struggle to contain a Europe-wide surge in Covid-19 cases.

As infections in the Paris area rose to 270 for every 100,000 people – and as high as 500 for every 100,000 among 20- to 30-year-olds – with 36% of intensive care beds occupied by Covid-19 patients, the city’s police chief said bars must close from Tuesday.

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How Covid is accelerating the fight for Black voting rights in the US – video

Donald Trump’s election campaign in 2016 targeted nearly 3.5 million Black Americans to deter them from voting, and the battle for the right to vote is just as important in 2020. Kenya Evelyn travels to Florida where it's the Democrats' most loyal bloc, Black women, who are also bearing the brunt of the coronavirus outbreak, with its impact accelerating the fight for voting rights. From mail-in ballots and early voting, to felon disenfranchisement, Black voters are wielding their power to demand more from Democrats ahead of November


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Lana Del Rey criticised for wearing mesh mask to poetry reading

Musician posed with fans at a Los Angeles bookshop wearing a glittery mesh mask that did not fully cover her nose and mouth

Fans of Lana Del Rey have criticised her for wearing a glittery mesh mask that did not appear to fully cover her nose and mouth at a surprise poetry reading and book signing event.

The musician read from her new collection, Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass, and posed with fans at a Barnes and Noble store in Los Angeles at the weekend, wearing a net facial covering that did not seem to assist in preventing the spread of the coronavirus.

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US police used British anti-riot gear at Black Lives Matter protests

Revelation contradicts official assurance that no UK-made equipment was used to repress peaceful demonstrations

US law enforcement officers used British anti-riot gear to strike protesters during their controversial policing of Black Lives Matter demonstrations, despite assurances from the Conservative government that no UK-made equipment was used to repress peaceful protest.

Officers deployed at demonstrations in Washington DC hit protesters and in one case a journalist using shields made by the British-based firm DMS Plastics. Video and photographs suggest, and a lawsuit alleges, that officers charged at protesters, rather than acting in self-defence. US forces deny the allegations.

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Coronavirus live news: global cases pass 35m as Walter Reed physician calls Trump drive ‘insanity’

UK reports 22,961 new cases, says figure ‘artificially high’; nine New York neighbourhoods headed for lockdown; Ireland health experts recommend moving to highest level. Follow the latest updates

In non-coronavirus news, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 1,382 to 300,619, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Monday.

The reported death toll rose by five to 9,534, the tally showed.

The New York Times, citing medical experts, reported on Sunday that Trump’s medical treatments suggest that the president has a “severe” case of Covid-19.

The times report, which asks several doctors to decipher how ill Trump may be – amid confusing and contradictory reports from his medical staff and the White House – based on the treatments he is taking.

Some experts raised an additional possibility: that the president is directing his own care, and demanding intense treatment despite risks he may not fully understand. The pattern even has a name: V.I.P. syndrome, which describes prominent figures who receive poor medical care because doctors are too zealous in treating them — or defer too readily to their instructions.

Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody therapy: On Friday afternoon, the White House said in a letter that Trump was treated with an 8-gram dose of the experimental antibody therapy cocktail made by the biotechnology company Regeneron. The investigational cocktail, known by its investigational name REGN-COV2, has been in clinical trials since June.

Remdesivir: President Trump is being given a five-day course of the antiviral drug remdesivir, one of the doctors treating him said during a briefing on Saturday. The treatment is intended to shorten recovery time for Covid-19 patients. In a Phase 3 clinical trial, remdesivir was found to speed recovery in moderately ill patients with pneumonia from Covid-19, according to results published in the medical journal JAMA in August.

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Coronavirus live news: Irish government ‘to reject new lockdown recommendation’; Paris bars to close

Ireland’s health chiefs called for highest level of restrictions late on Sunday; restaurants in Paris can stay open but bars cannot

French health authorities have reported that the number of patients being treated in intensive care units (ICUs) for Covid-19 has gone beyond the 1,400 threshold for the first time since 28 May.

The latest figure comes the day before Paris is to be placed on maximum Covid-19 alert, meaning bars will be forced to close for two weeks, partly because of the sharp rise of the number of people in ICUs.

Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona has been tested for the coronavirus, his lawyer said on Twitter on Monday.

The results of the former striker’s test are expected within 24 hours, his lawyer Matias Morla said. Morla shared a photo of a medical worker swabbing Maradona at his home.

Cumpliendo con los protocolos y para tranquilidad de Diego y de su familia, Maradona fue hisopado este mediodia en su domicilio. Los resultados estarán en las próximas 24 horas. pic.twitter.com/BTCLVgyc0c

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‘This is insanity’: Walter Reed physician among critics of Trump drive-by visit

President briefly left hospital for surprise drive past supporters with at least two others in vehicle

Donald Trump drew immediate rebuke from doctors on Sunday afternoon for an “insane” surprise drive-by visit to supporters outside the Walter Reed military medical center, where the president is being treated for an infection of Covid-19.

At least two other people, probably Secret Service agents, wearing respirators and eye protection, were seen on video in the vehicle accompanying Trump, who was also masked, during the short drive.

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Donald Trump drives past supporters after saying he has ‘learnt a lot about Covid’ – video

After releasing an upbeat video message from the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, US president Donald Trump left hospital to wave to his supporters in a motorcade. Throngs of flag-waving Trump supporters gathered outside the hospital where Trump was being treated for Covid-19. The move was criticised as insanity' by one Walter Reed doctor. In the video message Trump thanked the medical team, saying: 'The work they do is just absolutely amazing.' He added that his time in hospital has been 'a very interesting journey' and that he has 'learnt a lot about Covid'. 

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Sean Conley: who is the Trump doctor whose updates are raising questions

Physician’s press briefings leave medical experts, analysts and the public searching for the truth as to how sick the president really is

Donald Trump has often boasted of surrounding himself with “the best people” and the medical skills of Dr Sean Conley, the personal physician now charged with steering the US president back to health through his encounter with Covid-19, have never been called into question.

Related: Trump's steroid Covid treatment adds to confusion over health

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Trump’s steroid Covid treatment adds to confusion over health

Dexamethasone ‘normally reserved for people going into respiratory failure’, says expert

The latest intervention from Donald Trump’s medical team has been to put the president on dexamethasone, a steroid that is proven, thanks to the UK’s Recovery trial, to benefit Covid-19 patients who are having breathing difficulties.

But the decision to administer the steroid now has only added to the confusion surrounding the president’s state of health. Normally, dexamethasone is reserved for patients who have been ill for at least a week and whose oxygen levels are low.

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Trump 14 points behind Biden a month before election, new poll shows

Trump’s advisers scramble to find a strategy for final weeks, saying ‘it’s important that our campaign vigorously proceed’

Donald Trump’s beleaguered campaign team woke up to another setback on Sunday as the president began his second full day in hospital: a new national poll showing their candidate 14 points behind his challenger Joe Biden with less than a month until the election day.

The NBC/Wall Street Journal survey indicating a 53-39% advantage for the Democratic party’s nominee injected urgency for Trump’s advisers already scrambling to find a strategy for the final weeks of the campaign until 3 November.

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Donald Trump received oxygen at least twice since Covid-19 diagnosis – video

Donald Trump’s doctor, Sean Conley, said the president experienced two drops in his blood oxygen levels and had needed to be given supplemental oxygen twice since becoming ill on Thursday.

Speaking at a press conference, Conley said he had been upbeat about the president’s health in a previous briefing because he hadn't wanted to 'steer the course of the illness' but in doing so had made it seem as if Trump's medical team were trying to hide something, which, he said, 'wasn't necessarily true'.

Another member of the team, Dr Brian Garibaldi, said the president may be released as early as tomorrow

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