- PoliticsUSA TODAY Opinion
Trump and Barr are making false claims about mail-in ballots to scare us out of voting
Nevertheless, last month, when he wasn't busy ineffectually trying to replace the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan with a Trump loyalist, Attorney General William Barr took out after voting by mail as rife with fraud. In this, he was echoing his master, President Trump. In an interview he gave to Fox News, the attorney general said voting by mail “opens the floodgates to fraud.
- WorldThe National Interest
Great Power Showdown: How U.S. Navy Submarines Are Countering Chinese Expansion
Key Point: Submarines are an important part of maintaining a balance of power in the Western Pacific region. This month the United States Navy's Pacific Fleet submarine force announced that all of its forward-deployed submarines were simultaneously conducting "contingency response operations" in the Western Pacific in support of the Pentagon's "free and open Indo-Pacific" policy. This was to counter China's expansionism in the South China Sea, but also to downplay the notion that the U.S. Navy has been hampered by the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic.
- PoliticsCBS News
Biden evokes MLK and George Floyd in Fourth of July message
Evoking the names of Martin Luther King and George Floyd, Joe Biden said Saturday that the U.S. "never lived up" to its founding principle that "all men are created equal." In the Fourth of July video message, Biden said that even though America had fallen short of equality, the effort to live up to the nation's founding ideals continues. It survived the ravages of the Civil War, the dogs of Bull Connor, the assassination of Martin Luther King, and more than 200 years of systemic racism.
- U.S.NBC News
2 California death row inmates die from coronavirus complications
Two California death row inmates, including one convicted of killing two children, have died from what appears to be complications of the coronavirus illness COVID-19, state officials said. Scott Thomas Erskine, who was sentenced to death for killing two boys, ages 13 and 9, in San Diego in 1993, and Manuel Machado Alvarez, who raped a woman and killed a man he tried to rob in 1987, died Friday, the state corrections department said. Erskine, 57, had been on death row since 2004 and Alvarez, 59, since 1989.
- WorldBusiness Insider
Phoenix mayor says the federal government is 'declaring victory while we're still in crisis mode' as Arizona sees the highest per-capita infection rate in the US
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego said Sunday that she felt the federal government was "declaring victory while we're still in crisis mode." Gallego also blamed the significant increase in Arizona's cases of the novel coronavirus on the decision to reopen businesses in the state "way too early." Arizona has had the highest per-capita infection rate of any US state over the past seven days, according to the Harvard Global Health Institute.
- WorldReuters
Spain imposes second local coronavirus lockdown in two days
The northwestern Spanish region of Galicia imposed restrictions on about 70,000 people on Sunday following a COVID-19 outbreak, a day after Catalonia also introduced a local lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus. People living in A Marina along Spain's northern coast in the province of Lugo will not be able to leave the area from midnight on Sunday until Friday, two days before regional elections in Galicia on July 12. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, speaking at a local political rally in Bilbao on Sunday, urged people not to lower their guard, but called for calm as "the early detection of these outbreaks shows the health system is much better prepared" than in March.
- U.S.Associated Press
Frederick Douglass statue vandalized in Rochester park
A statue of abolitionist Frederick Douglass was ripped from its base in Rochester on the anniversary of one of his most famous speeches, delivered in that city in 1852. Police said the statue of Douglass was taken on Sunday from Maplewood Park, a site along the Underground Railroad where Douglas and Harriet Tubman helped shuttle slaves to freedom. In Rochester on July 5, 1852, Douglass gave the speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July,” in which he called the celebration of liberty a sham in a nation that enslaves and oppresses its Black citizens.
- U.S.The Telegraph
Woman dies and another fighting for life after car hits Seattle protesters
A 24-year-old woman died on Saturday of her injuries after she and another woman were hit by a car on a closed highway in Seattle while protesting against police brutality, authorities said. Summer Taylor of Seattle died in the evening at Harborview Medical Center, spokeswoman Susan Gregg said. Ms Taylor and Diaz Love, 32, of Portland, Oregon, were hit by the car that barreled through a panicked crowd of protesters on Interstate 5 early on Saturday morning, officials said.
WorldAFPRockets target US interests despite arrests: Iraq military
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.
- WorldUSA TODAY Opinion
To send a message to China, President Trump should visit Taiwan
Communist China has officially taken over Hong Kong. The passage on Tuesday of Beijing's so-called “national security law” effectively absorbs the formerly autonomous city in the totalitarian system of the Chinese mainland, threatening its freedoms with extinction. Everyone is now looking to the United States — the leader of the free world — for a strong and principled response.
- BusinessThe National Interest
Why U.S. F-35s, Stealth Bombers and Attack Drones Could Fail in a War
Fighter jets, stealth bombers, attack drones and air-traveling missiles all need to “operate at speed” in a fast-changing great power conflict era. When faced with fast, multi-frequency, long-range precision fire from enemy air defenses, air attackers simply must “operate at speed,” according to U.S. Air Forces, Europe Commander General Jeffrey Harrigian, who used the phrase in a discussion with The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. Harrigian, who is also now the Commander of U.S. Air Forces Africa, ran much of the air campaign during Operation Inherent Resolve against ISIS; he offered a first-hand war perspective in a conversation with retired Lieutenant General David Deptula, Dean of the Mitchell Institute.
- WorldBBC
The Grand Old Man of India who became Britain's first Asian MP
How was an Indian elected to the British Parliament in 1892? What relevance could this historical event have for us today? Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-1917) is an unfamiliar name these days.
- U.S.USA TODAY
Judge grants bond to ex-Atlanta cop charged with murder in Rayshard Brooks shooting
ATLANTA – The former Atlanta police officer charged with fatally shooting Rayshard Brooks can be released on bond, a judge ruled Tuesday. Fulton County Judge Jane Barwick said she does not believe Garrett Rolfe is a flight risk or would intimidate witnesses. Barwick set Rolfe's bond at $500,000.
- U.S.The Guardian
‘They feel invincible’: how California’s coronavirus plan went wrong
People began to fixate on individual liberties without understanding that one of the most fundamental civil liberties in the US is the right to health Lee Riley In Orange county, where more than 15,000 people have been infected, health director Nichole Quick resigned in mid-June after being confronted with a banner depicting her as a Nazi, protests outside her house and personal threats. Quick had issued an order requiring residents to wear masks in public, which the county sheriff insisted he wouldn't enforce. After she became the third high-level health official in Orange county to quit, the county quickly reversed Quick's order – recommending, but not insisting that residents wear masks.
- SportsNBC News
Despite precautions, summer camps have failed to keep out the coronavirus
As summer camps debated whether and how to operate during the coronavirus pandemic this spring, Kanakuk Kamps, a prominent network of Christian sports camps in Missouri, announced that its five overnight camps would open to over 20,000 kids starting May 30. Parents got an email from Rebecca Duncan, Kanakuk's health services director, advising them that their children may have been exposed: "As your Kamper returns home, we recommend that you consider a 14-day self-quarantine for your child and monitor for symptoms of COVID-19."
- U.S.Business Insider
An asymptomatic coronavirus carrier infected an apartment neighbor without sharing the same space. A study blames the building's elevator buttons.
According to a new study, transmission likely occurred in the elevator, when the neighbor touched the same buttons that the quarantined traveler had. The neighbor was later linked to 70 other coronavirus infections in the local community. Coronavirus particles can live on surfaces like plastic and stainless steel, which are common in elevators, for up to seven days.
U.S.Yahoo News VideoPredominantly Black armed protesters march through Confederate memorial park in Georgia
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.
- WorldReuters
Fire at Iran's Natanz nuclear facility caused significant damage: spokesman
A fire at Iran's underground Natanz nuclear facility has caused significant damage that could slow the development of advanced centrifuges used to enrich uranium, an Iranian nuclear official said on Sunday. Iran's top security body said on Friday that the cause of the fire that broke out on Thursday had been determined but would be announced later. On Thursday, an article by Iran's state news agency IRNA addressed what it called the possibility of sabotage by enemies such as Israel and the United States, although it stopped short of accusing either directly.
- U.S.Associated Press
Trump's `strong wall' to block COVID-19 from China had holes
An analysis of Commerce Department travel entry records and private aviation data obtained by The Associated Press shows that nearly 8,000 Chinese nationals and foreign residents of Hong Kong and Macao entered the U.S. on more than 600 commercial and private flights in the first three months after the ban was imposed. When U.S. residents flying from mainland China arrived at U.S. airports, the system meant to flag and monitor them for the development of symptoms lost track of at least 1,600 people in just the first few days the ban went into effect, according to internal state government emails obtained by the AP.
- LifestyleMiami Herald
Applebee’s employee dies in parking lot while celebrating July 4, Texas police say
A Fourth of July celebration in Texas came to a tragic end when a woman fell from a moving vehicle in an Applebee's parking lot and died early Sunday, officials say. Around 12:30 a.m., police said a 24-year-old Applebee's employee and some of her coworkers decided to set off fireworks in the Houston restaurant's parking lot after closing for the night, KHOU reported. The 24-year-old woman and an 18-year-old friend stood on the rear bumper, KPRC reported.
- ScienceBBC
Rocket Lab: Latest mission from New Zealand lost in flight
The American launch company that flies its rockets out of New Zealand has lost its latest mission. Rocket Lab said its Electron vehicle failed late in its ascent from Mahia Peninsula on North Island. All satellite payloads are assumed to have been destroyed.
- U.S.Los Angeles Times Opinion
Letters to the Editor: The Supreme Court futher erodes the wall between church and state
To the editor: The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-to-4 decision, has said that states may not exclude private religious schools if they give tuition grants that support other nonsectarial private schools. To the editor: Your articles refer to "religious schools." There is a difference between the terms "religious schools" and "schools operated by the religious organizations."
- WorldThe National Interest
This Chinese Submarine Could Drop a Nuclear Weapon on America
Here's What You Need To Remember: The nuclear submarine club is indeed a highly exclusive club—and those with nuclear ballistic missiles even more so. China's Type 094, or Jin-class nuclear submarines are capable, but they may be tools for promoting national prestige rather than true nuclear deterrence. The Type 094, or Jin-class as it is also known, is operated by the People's Liberation Army Submarine Force.
- U.S.The Independent
‘We didn’t knock politely’: Details emerge of FBI raid at Ghislaine Maxwell hideout
Ms Maxwell is currently being held in New Hampshire, where more than 20 armed FBI agents and police officers conducted a raid on her secluded 156-acre hideout – named Tucked Away – on Thursday morning. Spy planes are reported to have monitored the property for four hours prior to the 8:20am raid to ensure the daughter of late and controversial media mogul and MP Robert Maxwell was unable to flee. Armed law officers allegedly broke down the building's front door to find the former socialite “strangely” passive and subdued as she was placed in handcuffs, putting an end to a “high-stakes game of cat and mouse” which spanned the year following Epstein's death in a Manhattan jail cell and cost th...
- BusinessBusiness Insider
Aggressive anti-mask customers are forcing some restaurants to shut dining rooms to protect employees from abuse
Brendan McDermid/Reuters Some restaurants are shutting down or closing dining rooms back up after employees faced harassment and violence from anti-mask customers. Restaurants in states, including Texas, California, and Michigan, have announced plans to once again shutter dining rooms due to rude customers who refused to wear masks. Other restaurants are struggling to find ways to protect employees without closing dining rooms or shutting down entirely.
