Coronavirus live news: France could face ‘critical’ winter, expert says; Scotland could reimpose restrictions

Leading epidemiologist warns over case rate in France; Scottish first minister said her government could ‘put brakes’ on lockdown easing

Fatigue, headache and fever are the most common symptoms of coronavirus in children, with few developing a cough or losing their sense of taste or smell, researchers have found, adding to calls for age-specific symptom checklists.

The NHS lists three symptoms as signs of Covid-19 in adults and children: a high temperature, a new, continuous cough, and a loss or change in the sense of smell or taste.

Related: Fatigue and headache most common Covid symptoms in children – study

French people who reject mask-wearing are more likely to be older, educated women who support the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) protest movement and the controversial virus specialist Didier Raoult, and would refuse to have a coronavirus vaccination if one were available, according to a new study.

They also describe themselves as free-thinkers who believe the government is meddling too much in their lives, have a distrust of public institutions and often support conspiracy theories, it found.

Related: French 'anti-maskers' most likely to be educated women in 50s, says study

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Philippines pardons US Marine for killing transgender woman

President’s move to free Joseph Scott Pemberton condemned as ‘shameless mockery of justice’

The Philippine president has pardoned a US Marine in a surprise move that will free him from imprisonment for the 2014 killing of a transgender Filipino woman that sparked anger in the former American colony.

Teodoro Locsin Jr, the Philippine foreign secretary, tweeted that Rodrigo Duterte had “granted an absolute pardon” to L/Cpl Joseph Scott Pemberton “to do justice”, but did not elaborate. Duterte was to deliver televised remarks on Monday night where he would discuss Pemberton’s case, a presidential spokesman, Harry Roque, said.

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Julian Assange extradition hearing begins at Old Bailey

WikiLeaks founder in court to face US accusations of stealing military secrets

The WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, has appeared at the Old Bailey at the start of an extradition hearing on an 18-count US indictment that accuses him of recruiting hackers to steal military secrets.

Wearing a dark suit, tie and white shirt, Assange, 49, sat behind a glass security screen at the back of the court, his glasses pushed back on top of his head.

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Closing the race gap in philanthropy demands radical candour

Why should black founders jump through more hoops to earn funders’ trust?

I was in Kibera, Africa’s largest slum, when I heard about the shooting of another black man, Jacob Blake, by US police. Close by is a mural of George Floyd, painted on a wall near where I grew up, a reminder that the current upheaval surrounding race in the US has global repercussions. Just as calls for racial justice echo in American and European streets, government offices and boardrooms, we must not forget that the legacy of racial injustice extends far beyond those borders and any honest reckoning must include open dialogue around race in international development.

In Africa, white-led institutions have shaped the development and social entrepreneurship landscape, deciding who succeeds and who fails. Only recently has there been a growing recognition of these imperialist dynamics, which uplift foreign-led practitioners more than local ones. There is a growing consensus that the future should and must be created and led by Africans, because real progress requires it to be on our own terms. And yet, this is just talk until funders shift resources and power, at scale, towards local solutions.

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Cohen’s book spotlights Trump’s Obama obsession and resurfaces ‘you’re fired’ video

Michael Cohen alleges Trump had ‘hatred and contempt’ for Barack Obama and 2012 video shows Trump mocking his rival

The impression of Donald Trump’s obsession with his predecessor Barack Obama was fueled by a video from 2012 resurfacing this weekend from a parody in which the now-Republican president mocks his Democratic rival.

Journalists dug up the clip after Michael Cohen, Trump’s disgraced former fixer, shared a photo of it taken from the film to promote his latest book.

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California’s record-breaking heatwave sparks wildfires and raises health concerns

  • Triple-digit temperatures spread over much of the state
  • Heat sparks new wildfires and one hiker dies on trail

California is sweltering under a record-breaking heatwave this holiday weekend, with dangerous conditions that have sparked several new wildfires and raised widespread public health concerns.

Triple-digit temperatures have spread over much of the state, including a record-high of 125F (52C) in Death Valley on Saturday. In southern California, Malibu authorities reported that one hiker died due to heat while on a trail in the Santa Monica Mountains.

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‘Nothing but pain’: Jacob Blake speaks for first time since he was shot by police

  • Father of six was shot in back by police officer last month
  • Shooting sparked wave of protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin

Jacob Blake has spoken publicly for the first time since a police officer shot him seven times in the back. The 29-year-old says he is in constant pain from the shooting, which doctors fear will leave him paralyzed from the waist down.

In a video posted on Saturday evening on Twitter by his family’s lawyer, Ben Crump, Blake said from his hospital bed that “every 24 hours it’s pain, nothing but pain. It hurts to breathe, it hurts to sleep, it hurts to move from side-to-side, it hurts to eat.”

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A ‘tyrant-clown’ has destroyed my love affair with America | Robert McCrum

With its cynical disabling of the body politic, the Trump administration has contaminated the well of US independence

Once upon a time, at the start of the last century, PG Wodehouse declared, with the fervour of the convert, that to live in America was “like being in heaven … without the bother and expense of dying”.

America used to do that to a certain kind of Brit, and to those who saw themselves as Greeks to the Americans’ Romans: we’d fall hopelessly in love, however much they abused the relationship.

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Coronavirus live news: nearly 3,000 people in UK test positive in 24 hours

Significant rise in UK with 2,988 new cases; Netanyahu backtracks on lockdowns for cities with high infection rates; thousands attend protests against measures in Croatia and Italy

More than 200 UN employees have been infected with Covid-19 in Syria, medical workers and UN officials have said.

UN Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator in Syria, Imran Riza, last week told UN heads of agencies that the global body was close to securing a medical facility for treatment of coronavirus cases.

Up to 300 people who attended a charity football match at a working men’s club on the border of Sunderland and Durham have been asked to self-isolate after 28 tested positive for Covid-19.

Those who attended the event at Burnside working men’s club on 30 August are being told to self-isolate until 13 September.

Breaking: Up to 300 people who were at a charity football match asked to self-isolate, after 28 test positive for #Covid_19

Event was on 30 August at Burnside working men’s club (border of Sunderland and Durham)
 
Durham & Sunderland Council & @PHE_uk managing response.

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Michael Cohen alleges Trump racist outbursts and role in Stormy Daniels payoff in new book

White House dismisses as ‘fan fiction’ the tell-all memoir of convicted former fixer who claims Trump is guilty of the same crimes as him

Michael Cohen’s tell-all memoir makes the case that president Donald Trump is “guilty of the same crimes” that landed his former fixer in federal prison, offering a blow-by-blow account of Trump’s alleged role in a hush money scandal that once overshadowed his presidency.

Of all the crises Cohen confronted working for Trump, none proved as vexing as the adult film actor Stormy Daniels and her claims of an extramarital affair with Trump, Cohen writes in Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump.

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‘He’s been set up’: the American whose life may depend on US-China relations

Sentenced to death in China, American Mark Swidan hopes for a permanent reprieve but his fate may hinge on an easing of diplomatic tensions

When Chinese police raided the Guangzhou hotel room of Mark Swidan and arrested him on 13 November 2012, he was on the phone to his mother, Katherine. Swidan had been in China sourcing building materials for his business , Katherine says, and they were discussing booking his ticket home to Houston, Texas, for his wedding, when he said there was a knock at the door.

“I heard banging, then I didn’t hear anything after that,” she recalls.

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‘It’s a race to get out there’: stir-crazy Californians are overwhelming campsites

Parks in California are seeing double or even triple the usual number of campers, who can bring trash and unsafe behavior

Chris Giesige thought planning a camping trip would be simple. He’s a regular, often heading out into the wilderness several times per year. But when he recently tried to reserve a campsite online in Yosemite, then Mammoth, then Whiskeytown Lake, he was shocked to see they were all booked for weeks. Twice he thought he’d found an open spot, only to see it get snapped up moments later.

“I know May, June and July are busy camping months, but I don’t remember it being like this,” he says. “I have never had as much trouble before in trying to find a campground.”

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Nearly all Black Lives Matter protests are peaceful despite Trump narrative, report finds

In stark contrast to right-wing claims, 93% of demonstrations have involved no serious harm to people or property

The vast majority of the thousands of Black Lives Matter protests this summer have been peaceful, with more than 93% involving no serious harm to people or damage to property, according to a new report tracking political violence in the United States.

But the US government has taken a “heavy-handed approach” to the demonstrations, with authorities using force “more often than not” when they are present, the report found.

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Donald Trump claims US has not seen any proof of Alexei Navalny poisoning – video

The US president declined to accept the German government's assessment that the Russian opposition leader was attacked with a nerve agent. This week the chancellor, Angela Merkel, revealed that tests at a military laboratory had identified unequivocally that the Kremlin critic had been poisoned with novichok

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Boris Johnson fascinated by Donald Trump, says ex-ambassador

PM is intrigued by Trump’s ‘relationship with the truth’, Kim Darroch writes in new book

Kim Darroch, a former British ambassador to the US, has said Boris Johnson is fascinated and inspired by Donald Trump, and is intrigued by the US president’s patchy relationship “with the facts and the truth”.

In a new book serialised in the Times, Lord Darroch said Johnson must share the blame for his resignation as ambassador to Washington, which followed the leaking of diplomatic cables disparaging Trump.

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The bleak Covid winter? America still not on course to beat back the virus

As summer ends, and as deaths near 200,000 amid severe economic damage, experts say the next few months are vital

Even with three decades of experience in the travel industry, Jorge Pesquera has never seen a downturn in business like this one.

Related: Could western Pennsylvania win Trump a second term?

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America Through Foreign Eyes review: a Mexican take on the US under Trump

Jorge Castañeda, once Mexico’s foreign minister, looks at the neighbour to the north – and where it might be heading

In 1830, Lorenzo de Zavala, the principal author of the 1824 Mexican constitution, found himself in exile. So decided to visit a nation he had long admired.

Related: 'Trump has a different leadership style': David Rubenstein plays it by the book

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Donald Trump says US ‘hasn’t had any proof’ of Navalny poisoning

President says US must look seriously at case but suggests media should be looking into China

President Donald Trump said the United States must look “very seriously” into the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, but that his administration had not yet seen any proof.

“I think we have to look at it very seriously, if it’s the case,” he said, before talking at length about his diplomatic efforts in North Korea and nuclear non-proliferation in Russia. “I don’t know exactly what happened. It’s tragic. It’s terrible, it shouldn’t happen. We haven’t had any proof yet, but I will take a look.

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US security adviser claims China has taken ‘most active role’ in election meddling

Robert O’Brien didn’t provide any details, also claiming Beijing had ‘the most massive program’ to influence US politics

China has taken the most active role among countries seeking to interfere in the US election and has the biggest program to influence domestic politics, the US national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, said on Friday, without providing any details.

“We know the Chinese have taken the most active role,” O’Brien told reporters at a briefing.

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