Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Jury is out on whether video-sharing site could make Microsoft a social media giant
As the clock ticks on Microsoft’s fast-track talks to buy TikTok the jury is out on whether it marks a unique opportunity to become a global social media giant overnight, or a $50bn (£38bn) geopolitically fuelled business blunder.
Donald Trump’s trade war with China has forced ByteDance, the privately owned Beijing-based parent of the video-sharing site TikTok, to pursue a sale of its US business after the president signed an executive order last week that could shut it down on 15 September.
White House reportedly asked South Dakota official about expanding monument
Donald Trump has denied that his team ever approached South Dakota’s governor about adding his face to the iconic monument depicting four presidents at Mount Rushmore. However, he added that it sounded like a good idea.
The New York Times reported a Republican party official source on Saturday stating that a White House aide reached out to Kristi Noem’s office with the question: “What’s the process to add additional presidents to Mount Rushmore?”
Five months since the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus crisis a global pandemic, the number of Covid cases globally is nearing 20m, with almost 730,000 known deaths.
The current number of confirmed infections stands at 19,792,519, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, with total new cases daily averaging more than 250,000.
India has registered a record 1,007 fatalities in the past 24 hours as new coronavirus infections surged by 62,064 cases, the Associated Press reports.
The health ministry said the total fatalities reached 44,386 on Monday. The number of confirmed cases reported so far are 2,215,074. At least 634,935 patients were still undergoing treatment.
Concern is growing that a resurgence of coronavirus in Europe will lead to a “second wave” of uncoordinated border restrictions that will undermine the open borders on which the European Union is founded.
In a letter to national governments, seen by the Associated Press, the European commission warns that “while we must ensure that the EU is ready for possible resurgences of Covid-19 cases ... we should at the same time avoid a second wave of uncoordinated actions at the internal borders of the EU.”
US has the highest number of cases and the highest number of deaths in the world as former vice president attacks Donald Trump over coronavirus ‘failures’
The US on Sunday passed the grim milestone of 5m coronavirus cases, as Donald Trump’s executive orders seeking to break a political impasse over further economic relief were denounced by a Republican as “unconstitutional slop” and Joe Biden accused the president of issuing little more than “excuses and lies”.
Recriminations have been flying in Washington since talks on further aid for the unemployed and for states struggling with a public health crisis collapsed on Friday.
Donations to support the president’s re-election have flooded in from a fossil fuel industry that has enjoyed three years of energy deregulation and tax cuts
In mid-June the oil pipeline billionaire Kelcy Warren hosted a fundraising bash at his palatial Dallas, Texas, home that drew the presence of Donald Trump and raised $10m for the US president’s campaign coffers.
Warren’s fundraising gusher for Trump occurred after he and his wife had donated a hefty $1.7m since 2019 to Trump Victory, a fundraising vehicle for Trump’s re-election and the Republican National Committee, according to the non-partisan Open Secrets group.
Experts predict an increase in deaths across the region, made significantly worse by lawmakers who question the value of face coverings
Three months ago, the Republican governor of Missouri chose not to wear a mask in a shop, because he said he wasn’t going to let the government tell him what to do. Mike Parson visited a hardware store to celebrate its reopening after he lifted Missouri’s coronavirus lockdown over the objections of health professionals and mayors of major cities.
Parson said the worst of the pandemic was past and the economic impact of the shutdown was worse than the virus. As for masks, the governor dismissively claimed “there was a lot of information on both sides” over whether to wear one so he wasn’t going to require people to do so.
Coatsworth is asked about the fatality rate in Australia. He says he hasn’t seen the data in the last week or two but Australia has generally been better than much of the rest of the world.
The reasons include the already high standard of Australian health care and in particular intensive care units and staff.
“But we’re also learning more and more. We’re applying new treatments and [a medication] that’s demonstrating in a recovery trial to decrease mortality. We have at our disposal... and our specialists that are backed up by the Australia New Zealand Intensive Care Society and are discussing the clinical treatment of patient whose are gravely ill with Covid-19 and how you ventilate them is a challenge and the contact of proning which is where you ventilate someone on their tummy, rather than on their back, has proven to be critical. The timing you do that.
Dr Nick Coatsworth, deputy chief medical officer in Australia is giving a national briefing.
Nationally in Australia there are 295 dead from Covid-19, and 658 currently hospitalised with 51 in intensive care.
It is not going to be acceptable for any single country to have the vaccine and Australia is joining with a number of different countries around the world through the initiative to ensure that any vaccine that is developed is available.
Two ex-Green Berets hired to oust president were sentenced in a secretive hearing that their lawyers say breached their right to a defence
A Venezuelan court has sentenced two former US special forces soldiers to 20 years in prison for their part in a blunder-filled beach attack aimed at overthrowing president Nicolás Maduro.
Lawyers for the former Green Berets, Luke Denman and Airan Berry, said they were barred from the secretive jailhouse proceedings Friday night in what they consider a violation of their constitutional rights to a defence.
Space agency says ‘certain cosmic nicknames are insensitive’ and vows to drop any reference to them
Nasa has signaled it is joining the social justice movement by changing unofficial and potentially contentious names used by the scientific community for distant cosmic objects and systems such as planets, galaxies and nebulae.
In a statement last week, the space agency said that as the “community works to identify and address systemic discrimination and inequality in all aspects of the field, it has become clear that certain cosmic nicknames are not only insensitive, but can be actively harmful”.
Clampdown comes as fears mount that mask-free bikers headed to large gathering could spread coronavirus to tribal groups
Thousands of bikers heading to South Dakota’s 10-day Sturgis Motorcycle Rally will not be allowed through Cheyenne River Sioux checkpoints, a spokesman for the Native American group said on Saturday.
The decision to prevent access across tribal lands to the annual rally, which could attract as many as 250,000 bikers amid fears it could lead to a massive, regional coronavirus outbreak, comes as part of larger Covid-19 prevention policy. The policy has pitted seven tribes that make up the Great Sioux Nation against federal and state authorities, which both claim the checkpoints are illegal.
We’ll be shutting down today’s blog shortly. Here’s a glance at today’s major news items:
Trump’s decision to unilaterally extend federal unemployment insurance through executive order will almost certainly prompt a legal challenge from Democrats on the grounds that only the legislative branch has the constitutional authority to determine federal spending.
But the US president brushed aside concerns on Saturday, suggesting that he believes public sentiment will carry the day.
More than 60 hospital networks are taking part in campaign as some of the usual ways of registering are curbed by the pandemic
An emergency room doctor in Boston is assembling thousands of voter registration kits for distribution at hospitals and doctor’s offices.
Later this month, students at Harvard and Yale’s medical schools are planning a contest to see which of the Ivy League rivals can register the most voters.
US border officials claim an incomplete tunnel found stretching from Mexico to Arizona could be the most sophisticated in US history. The tunnel runs from San Luis Río Colorado, Mexico, to San Luis, Arizona, where it stops short of reaching the surface. It is 3ft wide and 4ft high (1 x 1.3 metres). Smugglers have been using tunnels to move drugs and people across the border for decades
Luiz Henrique Mandetta says the Brazilian president’s ‘misguided’ handling of the crisis has failed to comfort families
Jair Bolsonaro’s former health minister has accused the Brazilian president of failing to offer “a single word of comfort” to the families of the 100,000 Brazilians who have lost their lives to Covid-19.
In an interview marking Brazil’s latest Covid-19 milepost, Luiz Henrique Mandetta – who was sacked in April after challenging the president’s internationally condemned coronavirus response – expressed consternation that Brazil’s leaders had failed to recognise so much pain.
Donald Trump says he will act unilaterally to suspend payroll taxes for all Americans until the end of 2020 and possibly longer and extend supplemental unemployment benefits and other coronavirus aid if no deal can be reached with Democrats on a new spending bill. 'If Democrats continue to hold this critical relief hostage I will act under my authority as president to get Americans the relief they need,' Trump says on Friday during a news conference at his resort in Bedminster, New Jersey. He added that an executive order could be signed by the end of the week, without specifying whether he meant this week or next week
Coronavirus has been allowed to run amok by governors and the president, spreading inexorably into the rural heart of America
A letter landed on the desk of the governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, this week that given the public health catastrophe swirling all around him might give him pause. His state is one of 21 across the US that have been placed by the White House coronavirus taskforce in the “red zone”, indicating the disease is now so prevalent that immediate restrictions must be imposed to avoid dire consequences.
Kemp, a Republican governor and Donald Trump ally, has adopted a controversial approach to Covid-19. Since early July the virus has roared across his state, with new infections rising sharply to top a devastating tally of 182,000.
Known for launching immigration crackdowns, the former sheriff lost the Republican primary to his former aide Jerry Sheridan
Joe Arpaio, the former Arizona sheriff notorious for his abusive policing and hardline anti-immigration tactics, has lost his bid to win back the post he held for 24 years.
An early Donald Trump supporter and proponent of the racist theory that Barack Obama was not born in the US, Arpaio lost the Republican primary for Maricopa county sheriff to a former aide, Jerry Sheridan. Sheridan will face off against Democrat Paul Penzone in the November elections.
President says he will suspend payroll tax and extend unemployment through end of year amid gridlock in Congress
Donald Trump has promised unilateral action to provide economic relief for millions of Americans hit by the coronavirus pandemic, but he offered few specific details and admitted the move is likely to face legal challenges.
The president’s pledge to rescue people from poverty and homelessness took place against the unlikely backdrop of his luxury golf club, where annual fees run to hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, with members in T-shirts not physically distancing as they watched and applauded him.
Statement says China is opposed to Trump but offers more concrete evidence of Russia’s efforts to undermine Biden
Russia is backing Donald Trump, China is supporting Joe Biden and Iran is seeking to sow chaos in the US presidential election, a top intelligence official has warned in a sobering assessment of foreign meddling.
The statement on Friday by William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, raises fears of a repeat of the 2016 election, when Russia manipulated social media to help Trump and hurt his opponent Hillary Clinton.