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Good morning.
On 16 April, the White House issued guidelines for the nation’s slow reemergence from lockdown. But the next day, rather than promote his own administration’s advice, Donald Trump tweeted demands to immediately “LIBERATE MICHIGAN”, “LIBERATE MINNESOTA” and “LIBERATE VIRGINIA”. At every step of the crisis, say public health experts, the president has undermined the government’s efforts.
Now, local officials are begging Trump to cancel his planned rally in Tulsa this weekend amid a surge of coronavirus cases in Oklahoma, one of six US states to report record numbers of infections in recent days.
In New Zealand, the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has asked the military to oversee the country’s quarantine process after two infected visitors entered the largely virus-free country and came into close contact with some 320 people: a fiasco Arden described as “unacceptable”. China has closed schools and grounded flights in response to a new outbreak in Beijing.
Meanwhile, leaders from the WHO, the UN and WWF International have issued a joint warning that pandemics result from humanity’s destruction of nature. Writing in the Guardian, they call for a green recovery from the Covid-19 crisis, with legislation to restrict destructive farming and unsustainable diets.
We have seen many diseases emerge over the years – such as Zika, Aids, Sars and Ebola – and although they are quite different at first glance, they all originated from animal populations under conditions of severe environmental pressures. And they all illustrate that our destructive behaviour towards nature is endangering our own health.
Trump’s police reform order will not tackle systemic racism
On Tuesday, Trump appeared to address the policing reforms being demanded in the wake of the George Floyd protests, by signing an executive order to discourage officers from using chokeholds and to create a national database for police misconduct.
But critics described the order as a “woeful” attempt to shift focus from the president’s own divisive rhetoric. And even in his accompanying remarks, Trump seemed to deny the existence of systemic racism, blaming police violence instead on a “small number of bad police officers”.
A police officer used a chokehold on Manuel Ellis in the moments before his death. In video of the incident released on Monday, the officer appears to use a neck restraint on Ellis, before a second officer tasers him.
The White House sued to stop Bolton’s book being published
The Trump administration has sued to block the publication of a White House memoir by the former national security adviser, John Bolton, claiming it contains classified information that would compromise national security. Publishers Simon & Schuster said the book, The Room Where it Happened, depicts “a president for whom getting re-elected was the only thing that mattered, even if it meant endangering or weakening the nation”.
This opportunity to silence his opponents is a fight the president has been itching for, says Lloyd Green:
Sadly, the ghosts of the Pentagon Papers are back. Once again, an unmoored administration appears determined to use the courts to muzzle its critics.
Trump is reportedly considering similar legal action to block a book by his niece, Mary: a bombshell family memoir that Simon & Schuster describes as “a nightmare of traumas, destructive relationships, and a tragic combination of neglect and abuse”.
A border dispute between China and India has turned deadly
Twenty members of the Indian military have been killed in a clash with Chinese forces on the disputed Himalayan border between the two Asian giants. Soldiers on both sides rarely carry firearms, in an effort to avoid such escalating conflict, so the “violent face-off” was reportedly fought instead with iron bars, rocks and fists – and most of the victims fell to their deaths from the narrow mountain ridge.
The first fatal clash between the two nuclear states since 1975 came after Chinese forces occupied areas of disputed Himalayan territory in April – and refused to leave. Julian Borger says it’s a conflict that could spiral further out of control:
The deadly brawl in the Galwan valley was the latest symptom of an increasingly aggressive Chinese policy on territory and borders, of the sort that has been playing out among the rocks and reefs of the South China Sea.
In other news …
Pacific Gas & Electric has confessed to killing 84 people, pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter charges over the 2018 wildfire that destroyed the California town of Paradise, and which was blamed on the utility company’s faulty electrical grid.
An air force sergeant has been charged over a fatal shooting of a federal security officer in Oakland last month. Steven Carrillo, 32, who is thought to have ties to the anti-government “boogaloo” movement, was already jailed over the ambush killing of a California sheriff’s deputy on 6 June.
Facebook has unveiled plans to help 4 million Americans register to vote before November’s election, with a new voting information centre – as well as efforts to prevent “malicious” foreign interference of the sort that plagued the platform during the 2016 presidential race.
Great reads
The battle over ‘wet’ markets
Live animal markets are hardly unique to China, and amid the coronavirus crisis there have been calls for their closure all the way from Wuhan to New York City. But researchers say such a move could unfairly target immigrants and their culinary cultures, without preventing the spread of disease. Kimon de Greef reports.
Will men do more at home after the pandemic?
After months of lockdown, men in many families have grown accustomed to doing a greater share of childcare and housework. Brigid Schulte and Haley Swenson ask whether this temporary shift in gender norms could become a lasting change.
Inside the sinister world of Roy Cohn
The film-maker Ivy Meeropol is the granddaughter of the Rosenbergs, the couple executed by the US for espionage in 1953 after their prosecution by Roy Cohn, the sinister fixer who went on to be Trump’s mentor. Her latest documentary delves into Cohn’s dark legacy, she tells Charles Bramesco.
Opinion: US jaywalking laws target people of color
Last year, 90% of New York’s illegal walking tickets were issued to black and Hispanic people, over an offence confected by the US automobile industry. Jaywalking laws are part of widespread systemic racism – and should be abolished, says Arwa Mahdawi.
Police in Tulsa, Oklahoma, made headlines this week when they violently detained two teenage African American boys, and arrested one, for walking down a quiet street that didn’t have a pavement.
Last Thing: Who needs masks? Putin has a ‘disinfection tunnel’
Trump refuses even to wear a mask to reduce his risk of catching the coronavirus. But his Russian counterpart is taking no chances. Vladimir Putin has installed a “disinfection tunnel” at his residence near Moscow, which anyone visiting him must first pass through.
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