- PoliticsYahoo News
White House defends Trump's claim that 99 percent of COVID-19 cases are 'harmless' with chart showing 5 percent are fatal
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany came to her press briefing on Monday prepared to defend President Trump's claim over the weekend that “99 percent” of U.S. coronavirus cases are “totally harmless” with two charts illustrating the country's COVID-19 death rate. But McEnany's slides showed a case fatality rate — the percentage of confirmed cases that result in death — of 4.6 percent, not the 1 percent implied by Trump. During a July 4 “Salute to America” speech on the South Lawn of the White House, Trump boasted that the administration has conducted more than 40 million coronavirus tests.
- U.S.Yahoo News
Video shows Black man pinned to tree in what he calls 'attempted lynching' at Indiana lake
Indiana authorities are investigating a report by a Black man who said he was pinned to a tree by a group of white men, an attack he likened to an “attempted lynching.” Parts of the incident were captured on video by one of the man's friends. In a post to Facebook, Vauhxx Booker wrote, “I don't want to recount this, but I was almost the victim of an attempted lynching.”
- U.S.Associated Press
Black Lives Matter protesters face rare leak charge in Iowa
Prosecutors in Iowa have filed a rarely used leak charge against Black Lives Matter protesters accused of stealing a confidential police document and displaying it during a television news broadcast. Two protesters are charged with unauthorized dissemination of intelligence data, a felony that carries up to five years in prison. The Iowa Judicial Branch says it's only the second time that the charge has been filed since 2010.
PoliticsYahoo News VideoThe Lincoln Project continues anti-Trump ad campaign
On Tuesday, the Lincoln Project, a conservative political action committee formed in late 2019, released an ad titled “Whispers,” which suggests those in President Trump's inner circle are secretly mocking him. This is the latest in a series of attack ads produced and distributed by the committee, whose members include George Conway, Steve Schmidt and other prominent Republicans who oppose Trump. Yahoo News has assembled a compilation of some of the Lincoln Project's most controversial advertisements.
- WorldReuters
FBI chief says China threatens families to coerce overseas critics to return to China
FBI Director Christopher Wray on Tuesday urged China-born people in the United States to contact the FBI if Chinese officials try to force them to return to China under a program of coercion that he said is led by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Wray issued the unusual appeal in an address to the Hudson Institute think tank in which he reiterated U.S. charges that China is using espionage, cyber theft, blackmail and other means as part of a strategy to replace the United States as the world's dominant economic and technological power.
- U.S.USA TODAY
Another Confederate statue in Richmond, Va., comes down along Monument Avenue
Another Confederate statue on Richmond's iconic Monument Avenue was removed Tuesday, the third in a week and the final one owned by the city that was once the capital of the Confederacy. The bronze monument to Confederate Gen. J.E.B. Stuart on horseback was hoisted from its granite base as crowds cheered early Tuesday. The Stuart statue was one of four monuments of prominent Confederate leaders owned by the city of Richmond that have been removed in recent weeks.
- EntertainmentThe National Interest
China Has a Plan to Crush the Tibetan Diaspora
The atheists in Beijing are eagerly waiting for him to die so that they can pick his successor. “I will also be there for around twenty years,” the Dalai Lama said on June 5, while giving the Bodhicitta empowerment, which is intended to cultivate an altruistic, awakened mind. China is particularly interested in the Dalai Lama's death.
- U.S.Time
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms Tests Positive for COVID-19
Keisha Lance Bottoms, the mayor of Atlanta, announced on Monday afternoon that she tested positive for COVID-19. In a tweet, Mayor Bottoms said that she has had no symptoms and that the virus had “literally hit home.” In recent weeks, the city of Atlanta and Mayor Bottoms has been in the spotlight as a result of the widespread protests over police brutality, racial discrimination and the killing of Rayshard Brooks, a Black man who was shot and killed by an Atlanta police officer in a Wendy's parking lot.
- WorldThe Telegraph
Kremlin vows to retaliate against fresh UK sanctions against Russians
The Kremlin spokesman says that Moscow will respond to new UK sanctions against Russian citizens including a senior investigator and prison officials. Britain on Monday used a new legislation drafted in the memory of a killed Russian tax adviser to sanction 25 Russian nationals linked to prosecution and mistreatment of tax adviser Sergei Magnitsky as well as 20 Saudis involved in the murder of a journalist in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, told reporters on Tuesday that Moscow “can only lament such hostile steps.”
- U.S.Yahoo News
Don't count on ever seeing Trump's 'Garden of American Heroes'
Call me cynical, but I have a feeling the National Garden of American Heroes announced by President Trump on Friday will never get off — or into — the ground, even if he doesn't put his son-in-law in charge of it. That is partly, of course, a recognition of the incompetence of Trump's administration, which has presided over an epic public health disaster and whose signature border wall initiative, guided by Jared Kushner, is proceeding at the rate of approximately 1 mile per year of new construction, not counting upgrades to existing barriers.
- U.S.The Independent
New law would require NYPD police to take out individual insurance to cover misconduct claims
A new bill introduced by a US lawmaker would require police officers to take out personal liability insurance to cover civil lawsuits filed against them for misconduct, reports have said. The new law, introduced by Senator Alessandra Biaggi, would mean that police are no longer represented by the city law department, according to a report by The New York Post. “While taxpayers bailout law enforcement who engage in misconduct, those same officers too often evade meaningful accountability,” Senator Biaggi told the newspaper.
- EntertainmentArchitectural Digest
Olson Kundig’s Latest Design Embraces Its Hawaiian Habitat
On a stunning lava rock field site in Kona, this stunning home seems to hover over the landscape as a series of pavilions Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
- U.S.Yahoo News
Exonerated Central Park Five members speak out: ‘Not too many things have changed since 30 years ago’
In 1989, five Black and Hispanic teens were falsely accused of raping and nearly killing Trisha Meili, a white woman jogging in Central Park. Known collectively as the Central Park Five, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise were convicted in two trials despite a lack of eyewitness testimony or DNA evidence and spent between six and 13 years in prison. Exonerated in 2002 after an investigation confirmed that a convicted murderer and rapist had committed the crime, the Central Park Five sued the city and state of New York, settling for millions.
- U.S.INSIDER
A former National Guard colonel apologized but will keep her professor job after saying sexual harassment is the 'price of admission for women' in the military
University of Wisconsin , Fort Hood Betsy Schoeller, a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and retired member of the Wisconsin Air Guard, apologized for her comments in a Facebook group on a news article about murdered US Army soldier Vanessa Guillén. Schoeller wrote that "sexual harassment is the price of admission for women into the good ole boy club" and "if you're gonna cry like a snowflake about it, you're gonna pay the price." A petition to remove Schoeller as a lecturer from UWM has amassed more than 135,000 signatures, but the university said "legal reasons" concerning her right to freedom of speech won't let it fire her.
- U.S.USA TODAY
Michigan drivers met with startling billboard message: 'Driving while Black? Racial profiling just ahead'
Motorists in Michigan were met with a startling message Monday on an electronic billboard in Redford Township. The organizer behind the billboard lives in Livonia and said it is an effort to awaken the city to problems that continue to exist with profiling and other forms of racism. The mayor called the billboard counterproductive.
WorldAFPAustralia warns of 'arbitrary detention' in China
Australia warned its citizens Tuesday they could face "arbitrary detention" if they travel to China, the latest sign of growing tensions between the two nations. The foreign ministry issued the warning in updated travel advice, which also noted that Chinese authorities had detained foreigners for allegedly "endangering national security". Australia has already told its citizens to avoid all international travel due to the coronavirus pandemic, and the updated advice did not raise the overall level of the warning against travel to China.
- PoliticsTime
The Supreme Court Just Pointed Out the Absurdity of the Electoral College. It's Up to Us to End It
Here's one nice thing we can now say about the Electoral College: it's slightly less harmful to our democracy than it was just days ago. In a 9-0 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that states have the right to “bind” their electors, requiring them to support whichever presidential candidate wins the popular vote in their state. Justice Elena Kagan's opinion was a blow to so-called “faithless electors,” but a win for self-government.
- WorldReuters
Russia cracks down on marmot hunting after bubonic plague alert
Russia said on Monday it had stepped up patrols to stop people hunting marmots near its border with China and Mongolia after the countries reported possible cases of bubonic plague, which can be carried by the animals. Authorities in Bayan Nur, a city in the Chinese region of Inner Mongolia, issued a warning on Sunday after a hospital reported a suspected case of the deadly disease. The Chinese region forbade the hunting and eating of the large rodents and asked the public to report any suspected cases, as well as any sick or dead marmots.
- U.S.Miami Herald
Despite rising COVID-19 cases in Florida, state orders public schools to reopen in August
Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran on Monday ordered public schools to reopen in August and offer “the full panoply of services” to students and families. As COVID-19 outbreaks spike in Florida, Corcoran's mandate said that extending school closures can impede students' educational success and prevent parents and guardians from returning to work. “There is a need to open schools fully to ensure the quality and continuity of the educational process, the comprehensive well-being of students and families and a return to Florida hitting its full economic stride,” the order states.
- BusinessBusiness Insider
BMW wants customers to pay a subscription fee to use features the car already has installed, like a heated steering wheel or adaptive cruise control
In July, BMW will roll out a sweeping software update that includes digital personalization and on-demand functions. The automaker envisions a future where people will subscribe to existing features on their cars, such as a heated steering wheel or adaptive cruise control. The software will be compatible with BMWs with the automaker's latest Operating System 7, as well as the 2021 BMW 5 Series.
- WorldThe National Interest
Could 'Baby' Aircraft Carriers Be the Next U.S. Navy Super Weapon?
The Navy can buy smaller, cheaper carriers rather than the $13 billion Ford-class behemoths it is currently constructing, according to a new study by RAND Corporation. The RAND study is a public version of a classified study conducted in 2016 at the behest of the U.S. Navy, which was ordered by Congress to examine cheaper options than the Ford-class carriers. It would be powered by forty-year nuclear reactors that couldn't be replaced, rather than the current twenty-five-year reactors on the Fords that can replaced to extend the life of the ship.
U.S.FOX News VideosWATCH: New York father walking with daughter is shot in broad daylight
A surveillance camera was rolling as a father walking with his daughter across the street was gunned down in the Bronx section of New York City as they traveled home.
- U.S.INSIDER
New York officials say a perfect storm of problems has made it an especially deadly summer in the city: 'It's guns. It's the gangs. It's the lack of jobs.'
Reuters Shootings in New York City claimed the lives of at least 11 people over the weekend, police say. The weekend follows an especially violent June: 250 people were shot in the first 28 days of the month, according to NYPD stats. On Monday morning, Mayor Bill De Blasio attributed the spike in violence to what might be the "single worst combination of crises New York City has ever faced," including the court closure and coronavirus.
- U.S.NBC News
Retired Air National Guard colonel apologizes for comments about Vanessa Guillen
A retired Air National Guard colonel and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee instructor says her social media post about slain soldier Specialist Vanessa Guillen's sexual harassment allegation was taken out of context. Betsy Schoeller, a former Wisconsin Air National Guard officer, posted comments on Facebook in response to an article about Guillen's killing, saying sexual harassment is the price of admission for women in the military and "if you're gonna cry like a snowflake about it, you're gonna pay the price." "UWM in no way condones Ms. Schoeller's comments, and we understand and empathize with the outrage and concerns we are hearing," the statement said.
WorldAFPChina detains professor who criticised Xi over coronavirus
Chinese authorities on Monday detained a law professor who published essays criticising President Xi Jinping over the coronavirus pandemic and accusing him of ruling "tyrannically", according to friends of the man. Xu Zhangrun, a rare outspoken critic of the government in China's heavily censored academia, was taken from his home in suburban Beijing by more than 20 people, one of his friends said on condition of anonymity. Xu published an essay in February blaming the culture of deception and censorship fostered by Xi for the spread of the coronavirus in China.
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