John Sandweg says the deployment of homeland security officials is a ‘manufactured crisis’ stemming from ‘a failure of leadership’
The former acting director of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which works under the Department of Homeland Security, has condemned the Trump administration’s handling of protests in Portland by deploying federal agents into the city.
Related: Portland clampdown: why are federal agents there and what are they doing?
Continue reading...New York state boats have ferried many more tourists than their Ontarian counterparts, where distancing has been far stricter
Every day, Mory DiMaurizio looks out his window at Niagara Falls and sighs in frustration.
Not at the sight of the falls – one of the most stunning natural wonders of the world – but rather at the prospect of US tour boats with blue-ponchoed Americans.
Continue reading...Six finalists chosen after city launched plan to rethink bridge that currently carries cars, trains, cyclists and pedestrians
The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted much of New York City’s normal rhythms of travel, with many people now hopping on to bicycles rather than the subway. A design competition could now solidify these changes by offering up a revamped version of the famous Brooklyn Bridge.
Related: If McDonald's is reopening, why not schools? It's complicated | Emma Brockes
Continue reading...Trump’s fifth homeland security secretary has denied there’s a systemic problem in US law enforcement and overseen extreme immigration restrictions
Chad Wolf wasn’t Donald Trump’s first pick for homeland security secretary – he wasn’t even his fifth or sixth.
But now he is the figurehead for the federal government’s intervention in Portland, where his department’s militarized agents have been recorded pushing protesters into unmarked vehicles.
Continue reading...US company forced to shut down call centres, website and some other online services
Garmin has been forced to shut down its call centres, website and some other online services after a ransomware attack encrypted the smartwatch maker’s internal network and some production systems.
The US company shut down services including the official Garmin website and all customer services, including phone lines, online chat and email.
Continue reading...Iran promises political response after several passengers were reportedly injured when Mahan Air plane quickly changed altitude
Two US fighter jets came close to an Iranian passenger plane over Syrian airspace, causing the pilot to change altitude quickly to avoid collision and injuring several passengers, Iran’s official IRIB news agency reported.
The agency initially said a single Israeli jet had come near the plane but later quoted the pilot as saying there were two jets that identified themselves as American.
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From me and Joan E Greve:
For coronavirus updates from around the world, follow the Guardian’s global blog:
Related: Coronavirus live news: US cases top 4m as WHO chief chides Pompeo for 'untrue' claims
Continue reading...US Secretary of State’s reported comments ‘untrue, unacceptable and without foundation’ says WHO; Trump cancels Jacksonville RNC; Bolsonaro not distancing despite positive test. Follow the latest updates
US infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci has thrown out the first pitch at a Nationals-Yankees game, and it didn’t go amazingly well, but it did lead to some okay Covid-19 jokes:
Fauci finally flattened the curve pic.twitter.com/I0zUwbl6OH
The US surpassed 4m coronavirus cases on Thursday, after more than 1,100 new Covid-19-related deaths were reported in a single day on Wednesday for the first time since late May.
As states continue to dial back reopening efforts, nearly every metric for tracking the outbreak has shown a worsening spread. The US politicians volunteering other people’s lives to fight Covid-19Read more
Related: US surpasses 4m Covid-19 cases as states dial back reopening
Continue reading...Biggest increases were from the US, Brazil, India and South Africa, according to the World Health Organization
Brazil has registered an additional 1,156 deaths over the last 24 hours and another 55,891 confirmed cases, the health ministry has said. The South American nation has now registered 85,238 deaths and 2,343,366 total confirmed cases.
Footage of Niagara Falls tour boats highlights the stark differences in physical distancing between Canadian and US-managed companies.
The Canadian tour company Hornblower Niagara Cruises’s ships can carry up to 700 people but Ontario’s strict rules have permitted them to carry only six passengers at a time.
Continue reading...Watchdog to look at use-of-force allegations in Portland and Washington as other mayors say: we don’t need your deployments
The justice department inspector general said on Thursday it would conduct a review of the conduct of federal agents who responded to unrest in Portland and Washington DC, following concerns from members of Congress and the public.
Related: DoJ watchdog opens investigation into federal agents' actions in Portland – live
Continue reading...Congresswoman condemned ‘violent language against women’ after Ted Yoho berated her on the House steps on Monday
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s outrage over a Republican lawmaker’s verbal assault broadened into an extraordinary moment on the House floor on Thursday as she and other Democrats assailed a sexist culture of “accepting violence and violent language against women” whose adherents include Donald Trump.
A day after rejecting an offer of contrition from Republican congressman Ted Yoho for his language during this week’s Capitol steps confrontation, Ocasio-Cortez and more than a dozen colleagues cast the incident as all-too-common behavior by men, including the president and other Republicans.
Continue reading...The New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the insults a Republican colleague was heard saying to her on the steps of the US Capitol on Monday are part of a larger problem faced by all women.
The Hill reported that Ocasio-Cortez was confronted by the Florida Republican congressman Ted Yoho. He apparently said she was 'disgusting' for saying of spiking gun violence in New York this month 'is a problem of a diseased society, which neglects its marginalized people … policing is not the solution to crime'.
Speaking on the House floor on Thursday morning, Ocasio-Cortez said: 'In front of reporters, Representative Yoho called me, and I quote, a "fucking bitch"'
New York judge orders documents unsealed after Maxwell’s lawyers had tried to keep them secret
An extensive collection of “extremely personal” documents in civil litigation against British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell can be unsealed, a Manhattan federal court judge ruled on Thursday.
The documents relate to Maxwell’s deposition in this litigation, as well as her early 2015 correspondence with her longterm associate, the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Continue reading...The mayor of Portland was teargassed by federal agents during protests against the presence of the agents sent by Donald Trump to quell unrest in the city.
Ted Wheeler, the Democratic mayor of the city in Oregon, said it was the first time he had been teargassed. Protesters had lit a large fire and armed agents launched teargas and stun grenades into the crowd.
Wheeler was mostly jeered by demonstrators who have clashed nightly with federal agents. The mayor has opposed the federal agents’ presence, but has faced harsh criticism for not taking more action to protect citizens
Xi has stifled dissent at home and is increasingly willing for China to assert itself abroad
Earlier this week, Chinese leader Xi Jinping held a rare meeting in Beijing with business leaders. Admitting that the Covid-19 pandemic had a “huge impact” on the country’s economy, Xi used a Chinese idiom to assure his listeners.
“While the green hills last, there will be wood to burn,” he said. “If we maintain our strategy … we will find opportunity in crisis and turbulence. The Chinese people will surely prevail over all difficulties and challenges ahead”.
Continue reading...Cases of Covid-19 among the young are on the rise as outdoor drinking draws crowds in neighbourhoods across the city
Motorcycles revved, waiters served drinks, and food in busy outdoor street seating areas and, on the pavement, people gathered to sip to-go drinks.
On Saturday night in Astoria, in Queens, it was almost as if coronavirus had never hit New York City.
Continue reading...A diplomacy shaped around self-serving tittle-tattle now risks lives and undermines America’s standing in the world
The campaign by the Trump administration against the World Health Organization has often seemed faintly preposterous.
Over the months of the coronavirus pandemic its untruths and hyperbole have been dismissed by many as iterations of Trumpspeak, whose main purpose has been to distract from the US’s catastrophic response to Covid-19, which has claimed almost 140,000 lives and devastated the economy.
Continue reading...The US president tells Fox news medical analyst Marc K Siegel of the rigours of the cognitive test he went through, which involved repeating five words in the same order. Trump told the New York University professor: 'They said nobody gets it in order, it’s actually not that easy. But for me it was easy.' He added: 'They say, "That’s amazing. How did you do that?" I do it because I have like a good memory? Because I’m cognitively there.’ The president then went on to suggest that presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden should take the test.
California Covid-19 cases pass New York’s after record day; WHO emergencies chief says vaccinations unlikely before 2021; global cases pass 15m. Follow the latest updates
The BBC reports that the coronavirus pandemic has pushed South Korea into a recession, with the country seeing a 2.9% fall in GDP:
South Korea has fallen into recession as the country reels from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
Asia’s fourth-largest economy saw gross domestic product (GDP) fall by a worse-than-expected 2.9% in year-on-year terms, the steepest decline since 1998.
China plans to provide a $1bn loan to make its coronavirus vaccine accessible for countries across Latin America and the Caribbean, the Mexican foreign ministry said on Wednesday, Reuters reports.
Mexico’s foreign ministry said in a statement that China had made the pledge in a virtual meeting between ministers from some Latin American and Caribbean countries.
Juan Tang is accused of lying about links to China military, amid tensions between Washington and Beijing after US orders Houston consulate to close
A Chinese researcher charged with lying to the FBI about her military affiliation has taken refuge in China’s San Francisco consulate, according to court documents, further escalating tensions between Washington and Beijing.
The standoff in San Francisco comes at the same time the US ordered the closure of China’s Houston consulate, on grounds of involvement in theft of “American intellectual property and private information”.
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