Good morning,
It was a frenetic day in US politics on Wednesday, as a series of explosive reports surfaced on everything from coronavirus to Russian election interference.
Perhaps the most remarkable was Trump’s admission that he had downplayed the seriousness of the coronavirus crisis because he did not want to cause panic. The revelation followed allegations from Watergate journalist Bob Woodward that Trump knew the extent of the deadly coronavirus threat in February, but deliberately misled the public. The news, which broke as the US death toll passed 190,000, sparked an outpouring of criticism, with Democratic rival Joe Biden describing it as a “life and death betrayal of the American people”.
Later, a report alleged that a US health official had been attempting to prevent Dr Anthony Fauci from discussing the dangers that coronavirus poses to children. Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has been a leading member of the White House coronavirus task force and regularly appeared alongside the president at press briefings.
Trump named three sitting senators as potential nominees for the supreme court if he is re-elected, in a move which has been criticised as an overt attempt to introduce a conservative political agenda to courts.
Trump loyalists ‘tampered with intelligence reports to downplay Russia threat’
![Acting homeland security chief Chad Wolf allegedly told Murphy that his Russia assessment should be ‘held … [because it] made the president look bad’.](https://media.guim.co.uk/23f6190cfc82cea08f3b2a74967e9081c2dca596/0_66_3500_2101/1000.jpg)
Trump loyalists in the Department of Homeland Security have been manipulating intelligence reports to downplay the threat of Russian interference in the election, a former top official from department claimed on Wednesday. Brian Murphy said he was demoted in August because he refused to fabricate intelligence, which also focused on reducing the risk posed by white supremacists in the US and exaggerating the threat of antifa and anarchist groups.
The US has revoked the visas of more than 1,000 Chinese students and researchers, whom it said had links to the Chinese military, to prevent them “stealing and otherwise appropriating sensitive research”.
Vice president, Mike Pence, is slated to speak at a fundraiser hosted by QAnon supporters, along with other top officials from the Trump campaign. The event in Montana next week is hosted by a couple who have expressed support for the antisemitic QAnon conspiracy theory in a series of social media posts.
Unprecedented wildfires turned Californian skies orange
Californians awoke on Wednesday to deep orange skies and ash raining down, as more than 85 significant wildfires continued to rage across the American west. In California, the Bear fire increased by a quarter-million acres over 24 hours, while in Washington more acres burned in a single day than typically burn in a year. Evacuations were mandatory in Idaho and Oregan, the latter seeing its first fatalities.
Scientists spoke of grappling with the unprecedented scale and intensity of the fires, with Chris Field, the director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, saying: “Even as someone whose job is to understand what’s happening, it’s really hard to keep up.”
California glows orange, in pictures: Striking photographs show the impact of the fires on the skies of San Francisco.
Animal populations have dropped 68% since 1970 as a result of human activity, a major new report has revealed. The report said the natural world was being exploited and destroyed by humans at an unprecedented scale.
In other news …
Mike Pompeo said there was a “substantial chance” that Russia was responsible for the poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Nalvany. Last week, Trump said he had not seen evidence that Nalvany was poisoned.
The white professor who pretended to be black has resigned from her post at George Washington University, following the cancellation of her classes last week. Jessica Krug taught subjects including African American history and colonialism.
A New York doctor accused of sexually abusing his patients is facing federal charges. Robert Hadden, a former gynaecologist, is accused of abusing “dozens” of patients, including “multiple minors”.
Anti-apartheid icon George Bizos has died aged 92. The renowned human rights lawyer helped Nelson Mandela escape the death penalty, and was described by the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, as “one of the architects of our constitution”.
Great reads
How music changed the civil rights movement
Rutha Mae Harris went from being a singer in the junior choir of her father’s church to a leading voice of the civil rights movement. In this interview, she discusses racism, Martin Luther King, and the importance of music in the fight for equality.
‘We should have the right not to like men’
Pauline Harmange didn’t expect to sell more than a couple of hundred copies of her treatise, I Hate Men, until a French government official threatened to get it banned and inadvertently made it sell out. She discusses the response to the publication, the reason she distrusts men she doesn’t know, and why her husband is an “exception”.
Opinion: worst of coronavirus pandemic in the US is yet to come
While we are being told that the pandemic is being reined under control, the most dangerous period is yet to come, argues Barry Eichengreen. Fatalities are at the same levels as the beginning of April, the economy is in peril, and a vaccine is likely to be rushed, Eichengreen warns.
The danger, then, is not merely side-effects from a flawed vaccine but also widespread public resistance even to a vaccine that passes its phase 3 clinical trial and has the support of the scientific community.
Last Thing: Australian men found alive after almost a week at sea
Two men who had been feared dead after vanishing off the south Australian coast almost a week ago have been found alive. Tony Higgins, 57, and Derek Robinson, 48, became stranded on their 10-metre wooden-hulled fishing boat, prompting a large, four-day aerial search. The search was called off on Wednesday night, just two hours before the men made contact with police, who worked overnight to locate them.
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