| US aircraft carriers conduct drills in South China Sea Posted: 04 Jul 2020 07:21 AM PDT  Two US aircraft carriers have carried out drills in the South China Sea, a US Navy spokesman said Saturday, after the Pentagon expressed concerns over Chinese military exercises around a disputed archipelago. The USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan conducted dual carrier operations in the waterway to "support a free and open Indo-Pacific," the spokesman said. The drills came as the Pentagon said it was "concerned" about Chinese military exercises in the South China Sea, warning the manoeuvres will "further destabilise" the region.
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| To send a message to China, President Trump should visit Taiwan Posted: 05 Jul 2020 12:15 AM PDT  With the loss of Hong Kong to China, Trump should visit Taiwan to show that the U.S. is serious about advancing its interests and values in the region.
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| Rare case of brain-destroying amoeba confirmed in Florida Posted: 05 Jul 2020 11:24 AM PDT  Naegleria fowleri is contacted when contaminated water enters through a person's nose and is found in warm freshwater.
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| How not to do Covid: Kazakhstan first country in the world to fully return to lockdown Posted: 04 Jul 2020 03:57 AM PDT  Kazakhstan will on Sunday become the first nation in the world to re-impose a country-wide lockdown after its easing in mid-May of largely successful measures to counter coronavirus sparked a surge in infections. The central Asian country, which borders Russia in the north-west and China in the east, appeared to have contained the disease after a two-month lockdown with just a few thousand confirmed Covid-19 cases. But Kazakhstan, home to 18 million, embraced its re-discovered freedoms with gusto. Family-oriented Kazakhs went back and forth to see relatives, and police would routinely bust wedding parties of up to 100 people as large gatherings were still banned. Cafes and gyms were busy again, and borders were opened to ease travel. Now it is faced with a total of 44,000 confirmed cases. Its hospitals - unlike previously - are over-stretched. Kazakhstan is a cautionary tale for all others exiting lockdown. Travel will be limited again, working hours of public transport cut down, non-essential businesses closed, and two cities in Kazakhstan's east will be closed. Social media has been flooded with images of ambulances lining up outside hospitals. Kazakhs got so spooked about the growing outbreak that lines have formed at pharmacies this week as people started hoarding medicine, triggering shortages. On Thursday, 70,000 packets of paracetamol delivered to pharmacies in Almaty, the country's biggest city sold out within half an hour. Saule Atygayeva, chief infectious disease doctor in the capital city of Nur-Sultan, held back tears as she told the Khabar TV channel: "I have been working for 28 years, and I have never seen anything like this before. A lot of people are dying just because people don't care about anything. They're out on streets, going to parties, infecting each other." Lukpan Akhmedyarov, a newspaper editor in the town of Uralsk by the Russian border, told The Sunday Telegraph: "Most people simply did not believe there was any danger. The message from authorities was that we have passed the peak. But we can see now that we're just getting close to it. "The number of cases we had back in March was dozens. Now we're recording hundreds of new cases every day, doctors have no energy any longer, and people have no money." Although the official death tolls stands at just 200, it is believed the true figure is much higher. But it is still a fraction of those suffered in many countries, including the UK, where 44,000 have died. During the spring lockdown, authorities sealed off neighbourhoods for days, locked up blocks of flats where a Covid-19 case was confirmed, and put up checkpoints. But there was a backlash when people emerged from the quarantine. Kundiz Ospan, 37, a lawyer from Almaty, and her family followed lockdown restrictions but several days after her husband, also a lawyer, went back to his office in mid-May, the family got ill. "What we're going through right now is what Italy had in March." she said. Ms Ospan said some of her gym friends ridiculed her for missing work-out sessions at the end of the lockdown. "People thought that it was some non-existing disease because they didn't know anyone who had it," she said. When she posted on Facebook that she was down with coronavirus, she started receiving hate messages. "Now every family has someone who's been ill," she said.
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| Stimulus money could pose dilemmas in nursing homes Posted: 04 Jul 2020 06:30 AM PDT  Nursing home residents are among the Americans getting $1,200 checks as part of the U.S. government's plan to revive the economy. The situation underscores the vulnerability of many elderly residents and potential confusion about what homes can and can't do with residents' money. One worry is that nursing homes could pressure residents to use the checks to pay outstanding balances.
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| Constitutional changes are the 'right thing' for Russia: Putin Posted: 05 Jul 2020 09:51 AM PDT  President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday constitutional amendments approved in a nationwide vote created the conditions for Russia's "progressive development" for decades to come. One of the changes approved in the week-long vote that ended on July 1 makes it possible for Putin to seek two more terms as president and, if re-elected, to stay in power until 2036. "They will strengthen our nationhood and create conditions for the progressive development of our country for decades to come," he said.
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| Bellagio error leads to one of biggest sports betting losses in Las Vegas history Posted: 05 Jul 2020 08:47 AM PDT  Almost a quarter of a million dollars in winning wagers reportedly placed at MGM Resorts last Sunday may have been the largest sportsbook loss in the history of Las Vegas.The bets were made after the sporting events had started.
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| Rockets target US interests despite arrests: Iraq military Posted: 05 Jul 2020 03:15 AM PDT  Two rocket attacks targeted American diplomatic and military installations overnight, Iraq's security forces said Sunday, a little over a week since unprecedented arrests prevented a similar incident. Since October, US diplomats and troops across Iraq have been targeted by around three dozen missile attacks which Washington has blamed on pro-Iranian armed factions. In the first move of its kind, elite Iraqi troops in late June arrested more than a dozen Tehran-backed fighters who were allegedly planning a new attack on Baghdad's Green Zone, home to the US and other foreign embassies.
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| Trump sows division at Mount Rushmore speech as U.S. grapples with crises Posted: 04 Jul 2020 08:41 AM PDT  President Trump made a direct appeal to disaffected white voters four months before Election Day.
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| Biden evokes MLK and George Floyd in Fourth of July message Posted: 04 Jul 2020 09:56 AM PDT  Biden's video message came hours after President Trump accused protesters who have pushed for racial justice of engaging in a "merciless campaign to wipe out our history."
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| Residents of Mexican town block Americans from entering Posted: 05 Jul 2020 04:20 PM PDT  Their informal border wall follows an upswing in Covid-19 cases in Arizona.
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| Letters to the Editor: The Supreme Court futher erodes the wall between church and state Posted: 05 Jul 2020 03:00 AM PDT  Taxpayer money should never subsidize tuition at private religious schools, but the Supreme Court wrongly believes otherwise.
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| An asymptomatic coronavirus carrier infected an apartment neighbor without sharing the same space. A study blames the building's elevator buttons. Posted: 05 Jul 2020 07:29 AM PDT  A woman infected her downstairs neighbor even though the two never came into close contact. Transmission likely occurred in the elevator.
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| Protester killed on Seattle freeway was dedicated to cause Posted: 04 Jul 2020 09:53 PM PDT  A person killed Saturday when a man who drove his car onto a closed Seattle freeway and into a crowd protesting police brutality was remembered Sunday as someone who was dedicated to the cause. The deceased, Summer Taylor, 24, spent the last six weeks "tirelessly standing up for others while working full time and supporting everyone around them," wrote Urban Animal on Instagram, the veterinarian clinic where Taylor worked in Portland, Oregon. "Anyone that works for Urban Animal will tell you that Summer Taylor's laugh makes any bad day better."
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| Hong Kong officials disappointed at Canada's move to suspend extradition pact Posted: 03 Jul 2020 10:00 PM PDT  Senior officials in Hong Kong said on Saturday they were "very disappointed" at Canada's decision to suspend its extradition treaty with the Chinese-ruled city and again slammed Washington for "interfering" in its affairs. Beijing imposed a new national security law this week on the former British colony, despite protests from Hong Kong residents and Western nations, setting China's freest city and a major financial hub on a more authoritarian track. "The Canadian government needs to explain to the rule of law, and explain to the world, why it allows fugitives not to bear their legal responsibilities," Hong Kong's security chief, John Lee, told a radio programme on Saturday.
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| A Nigerian Instagram star conspired to launder millions of dollars while flaunting his 'extravagant lifestyle' on social media, prosecutors allege Posted: 04 Jul 2020 12:26 PM PDT  Alleged scammer, "Ray Hushpuppi," 37, is facing charges related to his role as "key player in a large, transnational conspiracy," prosecutors said.
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| Bolton: Trump claim he wasn’t told of Russia bounty report is 'not how system works’ Posted: 05 Jul 2020 11:55 AM PDT  Ex-national security adviser also says any decision to withhold intelligence would 'certainly not' be 'made only by the briefer' * Trump uses Fourth of July to stoke division on virus and raceDonald Trump's claim not to have been briefed about intelligence suggesting Russia paid Taliban-linked militants to kill US soldiers is "just not the way the system works", former national security adviser John Bolton said on Sunday.Bolton was appearing on Face the Nation, the Sunday talk show from ViacomCBS, the communications giant which owns Simon & Schuster, the publisher which put out Bolton's Trump White House memoir, The Room Where It Happened, over the president's objection.Elsewhere, former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice said Bolton would have known about the bounties intelligence while he was in the role, which he left in September 2019, and would therefore have briefed Trump himself."I don't buy this story that he was never briefed," Rice told NBC's Meet The Press. "I believe that … when the information first came to light in 2019, my successor, John Bolton, would have walked straight into the Oval Office, as I would have, and informed the president of this intelligence."Bolton's book, a tell-all which sold nearly 800,000 copies in its first week in stores, is named for the Oval Office and contains numerous shocking descriptions of Trump's behaviour. But it does not mention the alleged bounties plot."I'm not going to disclose classified information," Bolton told CBS. "I've got the struggle with the president trying to repress my book on that score already."Bolton submitted his book to a national security review but was scolded by a federal judge for "likely publishing classified materials", "gambling with the national security of the United States" and "exposing … himself to civil (and potentially criminal) liability".On Sunday, Bolton said: "I will say this. All intelligence is distributed along the spectrum of uncertainty. And this intelligence in 2020, by the administration's own admission, was deemed credible enough to give to our allies. So the notion that you only give the really completely 100% verified intelligence to the president would mean you give him almost nothing. And that's just not the way the system works."The existence of intelligence about a bounties plot, which Russia has denied, was first reported by the New York Times then confirmed by other outlets. Trump attacked the Times on Twitter this weekend.Amid inconsistent White House explanations for Trump's supposed ignorance on the matter, current national security adviser Robert O'Brien said information was withheld by a CIA official, even though it was included in the president's daily brief."The president's career CIA briefer decided not to brief him because it was unverified intelligence," O'Brien told Fox News, adding: "She made that call and, you know what, I think she made the right call, so I'm not going to criticize her. And knowing the facts that I know now, I stand behind that call."O'Brien was widely criticised. Ned Price, a former CIA analyst, told the Guardian: "This is the same scapegoating play that the White House ran in the coronavirus context – blaming Trump's intelligence briefer for something that is chiefly and fundamentally a failing of the White House staff."Bolton said any decision to withhold intelligence would "certainly not" be "made only by the briefer who briefs the president twice a week. That's a decision that at least when I was there, would have been made by the director of national intelligence, the director of the CIA, myself and the briefer together."Though his book is a brutal and extensive anatomisation of Trump's personality and fitness or otherwise for office, Bolton sidestepped a chance to criticise O'Brien, saying: "I don't want to make this a matter of personalities."Nor would he say if he had known of the bounties intelligence or not."What was made public in 2018," he said, "was Russian assistance to the Taliban, and that's been known for some time. That alone is troubling."What is particularly troubling, if true, is this latest information that they were … providing compensation for killing Americans. And that is the kind of thing that you go to the president on and say, 'Look … we may not know everything on this, but a nuclear power is reportedly providing bounties to kill Americans.'"That's the kind of thing you need to have in the president's view so that he can think about it as he develops – well, at least as normal presidents develop strategy to handle Russia, to handle Afghanistan."
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| Florida, Texas post daily COVID-19 records as 'positivity' rates climb Posted: 04 Jul 2020 08:27 AM PDT  For a sixth straight day, Texas also registered an all-time high in the number of people hospitalized with the highly contagious respiratory illness - 7,890 patients after 238 new admissions over the past 24 hours. By comparison, New York state - the U.S. epicenter of the outbreak months ago, reported just 844 hospitalizations on Saturday, far below the nearly 19,000 hospital beds occupied by COVID-19 patients at the peak of its coronavirus crisis. During the first four days of July alone, a total of 14 states have posted a daily record increases in the number of individuals testing positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus that has killed nearly 130,000 Americans.
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| Applebee’s employee dies in parking lot while celebrating July 4, Texas police say Posted: 05 Jul 2020 09:26 AM PDT  Workers had just closed the restaurant for the night, police say.
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| Coronavirus: Mexico's death toll passes 30,000 Posted: 05 Jul 2020 12:19 AM PDT  The country now has the world's fifth-highest number of Covid-19 deaths, more than France.
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| Predominantly Black armed protesters march through Confederate memorial park in Georgia Posted: 05 Jul 2020 08:35 AM PDT  A predominantly Black group of heavily armed protesters marched through Stone Mountain Park near Atlanta on Saturday, calling for removal of the giant Confederate rock carving at the site that civil rights activists consider a monument to racism.
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| A white man, woman vandalized a Black Lives Matter mural on July 4, called racism 'a leftist lie,' California police say Posted: 05 Jul 2020 03:59 PM PDT  Police are looking for two white people who vandalized a Black Lives Matter mural in downtown Martinez, California, on the Fourth of July.
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| Letters to the Editor: Comfortable clothing isn't your right as an American. Just put on a mask Posted: 05 Jul 2020 03:00 AM PDT  Americans are made to wear things all the time that might make them uncomfortable. So why the resistance to masks in a pandemic?
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| This Aircraft Carrier Was Built for Waging War During World War II. It Made History a Different Way. Posted: 05 Jul 2020 10:30 AM PDT  Today the supercarrier isn't really such a novel concept, but in the early Cold War, this wasn't so readily apparent. This carrier changed that.
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| Keeping COVID-19 outside of camps is a near impossible challenge Posted: 05 Jul 2020 05:25 AM PDT  Campers and staff promise to isolate before they arrive at camp but in several cases the pandemic has arrived with them.
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| At Mount Rushmore, Trump digs deeper into nation's divisions Posted: 03 Jul 2020 10:10 PM PDT  At the foot of Mount Rushmore and on the eve of Independence Day, President Donald Trump dug deeper into America's divisions by accusing protesters who have pushed for racial justice of engaging in a "merciless campaign to wipe out our history." The president, in remarks Friday night at the South Dakota landmark, offered a discordant tone to an electorate battered by a pandemic and seared by the recent high-profile killings of Black people. Four months from Election Day, his comments amounted to a direct appeal to the political base, including many disaffected white votes, that carried him to the White House in 2016.
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| Berlin metro to complete change of derogatory station name by year-end Posted: 04 Jul 2020 08:32 AM PDT  Berlin's public transport company BVG said on Saturday that completing the renaming of a city centre metro station with a name based on a derogatory word for Black people will take until the end of the year. "Mohrenstrasse" metro station literally means Moor Street, using the medieval term for people from North Africa. BVG said on Friday it would change the station name, amid a worldwide reckoning with buried legacies of racism and colonial crimes underpinning many western societies, sparked by the death in the United States of George Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of a police officer.
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| The Grand Old Man of India who became Britain's first Asian MP Posted: 04 Jul 2020 04:55 PM PDT  Indian-born Dadabhai Naoroji was the first Asian to sit in the House of Commons.
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| 'We call them land yachts': The wealthy are spending millions to travel in luxury RVs this summer, and it's reshaping the entire look of high-end travel Posted: 04 Jul 2020 07:05 AM PDT  With coronavirus travel restrictions still in place, interest in luxury RVs is surging, and elite travelers are willing to pay top dollar for them.
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| Immigrant workers at Michigan greenhouse: We were cheated, tricked into deportation Posted: 05 Jul 2020 12:25 PM PDT  Migrants from Mexico came to Michigan to work at a greenhouse, but were cheated of pay and tricked into being detained, according to a lawsuit.
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| Two French ex-spies on trial accused of espionage for China Posted: 05 Jul 2020 08:29 AM PDT  In a case that could be from a spy thriller, two former French intelligence agents go on trial on Monday accused of having passed on secrets to a foreign power. While French officials have been at pains to avoid releasing details of the affair, the pair are accused of working for China, according to several media reports. Pierre-Marie H. and Henri M. will appear in a special court accused of "delivering information to a foreign power" and "damaging the fundamental interests of the nation". Both men worked for France's foreign intelligence service, the DGSE. They face 15 years in prison if convicted. Both men, now retired, were charged and detained in December 2017, although Pierre-Marie H. has since been released on bail. His wife, Laurence H., also faces trial, accused of "concealment of property derived from intelligence with a foreign power likely to harm the fundamental interests of the nation". The court that tries them will be made up exclusively of professional magistrates, and given the sensitive nature of the case, will probably be tried behind closed doors. When the story was finally revealed in May 2018, French officials described it as an "extremely serious" case. The then armed forces minister Florence Parly said that the two were suspected of having committed what could be described as "treasonous" acts that could have jeopardised national defence secrets. It was the DGSE itself that detected the leak and presented its findings to prosecutors, said the defence ministry. Officials have said little about the details of the case or even for which country they were allegedly working. According to several media reports however, the two men, colleagues at the DGSE in the 1990s, were working for China. In 1997, Henri M. was appointed as the DGSE's man in Beijing, where he was the second secretary at the embassy. He was recalled early in 1998 after having had an affair with the ambassador's Chinese interpreter. He retired a few years later and returned to China in 2003, where he married the former interpreter, setting up home on Hainan island in southern China. Pierre-Marie H., who had never been posted abroad, was arrested at Zurich airport carrying cash after having met a Chinese contact on an Indian Ocean island, according to media reports. Apart from the China connection, AFP has obtained no independent information linking the two men. While there have been a number of different theories put forward, both men appear to have been under surveillance for several months before being arrested. Journalist Franck Renaud covered the Henri M. affair in his book on the French diplomatic service, "Les Diplomates". During the 1990s, when Henri M. served in Beijing, tensions were running high between China and France, in the wake of China's 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown and the 1991 sale of French frigates to Taiwan, he said. "It's an affair that has caused more than a few problems to the DGSE," which had to repatriate operatives in China at the time, Renaud told AFP. The verdict is due to be handed down on July 10.
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| Police clear officer who appeared to flash white power sign at Oregon protest Posted: 05 Jul 2020 03:06 PM PDT |
| Trump and Barr are making false claims about mail-in ballots to scare us out of voting Posted: 04 Jul 2020 01:45 PM PDT  The one thing most likely to undercut public confidence in the integrity of the ballot is the false narrative Trump and Barr are peddling.
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| Soaring U.S. coronavirus cases, hospitalizations overshadow July 4 celebrations Posted: 05 Jul 2020 07:30 AM PDT  In the first four days of July alone, 15 states have reported record increases in new cases of COVID-19, which has infected nearly 3 million Americans and killed about 130,000, according to a Reuters tally. Florida's cases have risen by over 10,000 for three out of the last four days, including climbing by 10,059 on Sunday, surpassing the highest daily tally reported by any European country during the height of the coronavirus outbreak there. Cases are also soaring in Arizona, California and Texas and trending upwards in Midwest states that once had infections declining such as Iowa, Ohio and Michigan, according to a Reuters analysis of how much cases rose in the past two weeks compared with the prior two weeks.
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| Puerto Rico hit by 2 earthquakes in latest in series of tremors Posted: 04 Jul 2020 08:21 AM PDT  Puerto Rico was shaken by two strong earthquakes on Friday, but the island reported zero injuries in the latest series of tremors.
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| COVID-19 could lead to increase in tick-borne illness, experts say. Here’s why Posted: 05 Jul 2020 07:52 AM PDT  "I'm a little nervous that their guard may be down just a slight bit."
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| Katsina: The motorcycle bandits terrorising northern Nigeria Posted: 04 Jul 2020 05:31 PM PDT  Insecurity has worsened in the north-west as kidnapping for ransom becomes a lucrative trade.
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| Aggressive anti-mask customers are forcing some restaurants to shut dining rooms to protect employees from abuse Posted: 05 Jul 2020 07:30 AM PDT  Some restaurants are shutting down or closing dining rooms back up, after employees faced harassment and violence from anti-mask customers.
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| Army Specialist Killed in Afghanistan Vehicle Rollover Accident Posted: 04 Jul 2020 07:17 PM PDT  A 21-year-old soldier from Texas was killed Friday in southwestern Afghanistan, Pentagon officials announced Saturday night.
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| How America Captured a Russian MiG-15 Fighter (Thanks, North Korea) Posted: 04 Jul 2020 05:30 AM PDT  This was Operation Moolah.
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| 2 California death row inmates die from coronavirus complications Posted: 03 Jul 2020 09:58 PM PDT  The deaths of Scott Thomas Erskine and Manuel Machado Alvarez came as more than 53,000 new cases across the U.S. were reported Friday.
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| Donald Trump rushed to reopen America – now Covid is closing in on him Posted: 04 Jul 2020 10:00 PM PDT  The president trumpets jobs figures built on thin ice but does nothing to protect those about to lose their health and homesDonald Trump said Thursday's jobs report, which showed an uptick in June, proves the US economy is "roaring back".Rubbish. The labor department gathered the data during the week of 12 June, when America was reporting 25,000 new cases of Covid-19 a day. By the time the report was issued, that figure was 55,000.The US economy isn't roaring back. Just over half of Americans have jobs now, the lowest figure in more than 70 years. What's roaring back is Covid-19. Until it's tamed, the American economy doesn't stand a chance.The surge in cases isn't because America is doing more tests for the virus, as Trump contends. Cases are rising even where testing is declining. In Wisconsin, cases soared 28% over the past two weeks, as the number of tests decreased by 14%. Hospitals in Texas, Florida and Arizona are filling up with Covid-19 patients. Deaths are expected to resume their gruesome ascent.The surge is occurring because America reopened before Covid-19 was contained.Trump was so intent on having a good economy by election day that he resisted doing what was necessary to contain the virus. He left everything to governors and local officials, then warned that the "cure" of closing the economy was "worse than the disease". Trump even called on citizens to "liberate" their states from public health restrictions.> In the biggest public health emergency in US history, in which 130,000 have lost their lives, still no one is in chargeYet he still has no national plan for testing, contact tracing and isolating people with infections. Trump won't even ask Americans to wear masks. Last week, Democrats accused him of sitting on nearly $14bn in funds for testing and contact tracing that Congress appropriated in April.It would be one thing if every other rich nation in the world botched it as badly as has America. But even Italy – not always known for the effectiveness of its leaders or the pliability of its citizens – has contained the virus and is reopening without a resurgence.There was never a conflict between containing Covid-19 and getting the US economy back on track. The first was always a prerequisite to the second. By doing nothing to contain the virus, Trump has not only caused tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths but put the US economy into a stall.The uptick in jobs in June was due almost entirely to the hasty reopening, which is now being reversed.Arizona's Republican governor, Doug Ducey, initially refused to order masks and even barred local officials from doing so. This week he closed all gyms, bars and movie theaters in the state. The governors of Florida, Texas and California have also reimposed restrictions. Officials in Florida's Miami-Dade county recently approved the reopening of movie theaters, arcades, casinos, concert halls, bowling halls and adult entertainment venues. They have now re-closed them.And so on across America. A vast re-closing is under way, as haphazard as was the reopening. In the biggest public health emergency in US history, in which nearly 130,000 have already lost their lives, still no one is in charge.Brace yourself. Not only will the virus take many more lives in the months ahead, but millions of Americans are in danger of becoming destitute. Extra unemployment benefits enacted by Congress in March are set to end on 31 July. About one in five people in renter households are at risk of eviction by 30 September. Delinquency rates on mortgages have more than doubled since March.An estimated 25 million Americans have lost or will lose employer-provided health insurance. America's fragile childcare system is in danger of collapse, with the result that hundreds of thousands of working parents will not be able to return to work even if jobs are available.What is Trump and the GOP's response to this looming catastrophe? Nothing. Senate Republicans are trying to ram through a $740bn defense bill while ignoring legislation to provide housing and food relief.They are refusing to extend extra unemployment benefits beyond July, saying the benefits are keeping Americans from returning to work. In reality, it's the lack of jobs.Trump has done one thing. He's asked the supreme court to strike down the Affordable Care Act. If the court agrees, it will end health insurance for 23 million more Americans and give the richest 0.1% a tax cut of about $198,000 a year.This is sheer lunacy. The priority must be to get control over this pandemic and help Americans survive it, physically and financially. Anything less is morally indefensible. * Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a columnist for Guardian US
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| Fact check: Common cold does not produce positive coronavirus test Posted: 05 Jul 2020 10:45 AM PDT  People are misinterpreting COVID-19 viral testing for antibodies testing, falsely claiming colds are responsible for positive coronavirus tests.
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| Iran records highest daily death toll from COVID-19 Posted: 05 Jul 2020 05:17 AM PDT  The 163 deaths reported on Sunday exceed the previous record from last Monday, when the health ministry reported 162 deaths in a day. The Islamic Republic has recorded a total of 11,571 deaths and 240,438 infections from the coronavirus, health ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari said in a statement on state TV. Iranians who do not wear masks will be denied state services and workplaces that fail to comply with health protocols will be shut for a week, President Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday as he launched new measures to try to curb the coronavirus.
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| Strip club employees, customers hit with coronavirus outbreak, Michigan officials say Posted: 05 Jul 2020 02:12 PM PDT  The outbreak comes as more than 150 cases of coronavirus have been linked to a bar in a Michigan college town.
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| India coronavirus: Questions over death of man 'turned away by 18 hospitals' Posted: 03 Jul 2020 08:57 PM PDT  Bhawarlal Sujani breathed his last at the doorstep of a hospital that had refused to admit him.
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