National parks require masks ‘regardless of vaccination status’
Add COVID-19 masks to your camping gear when visiting Yellowstone, Yosemite and beyond.
The National Park Service is requiring masks for crowded outdoor spaces and buildings “regardless of vaccination status or community transmission levels.”
In a statement issued Monday, Shawn Benge, deputy director of the park service, said: “Visitors to national parks are coming from locations across the country, if not across the world. Because of this, and recognizing that the majority of the United States is currently in substantial or high transmission categories, we are implementing a service-wide mask requirement to ensure our staff and visitors’ safety.”
—Bloomberg News
Kenosha sheriff, city police gave armed civilians license ‘to wreak havoc and inflict injury’ during last summer’s unrest, lawsuit says
The parents of a man fatally shot during last summer’s violent demonstrations in Kenosha on Tuesday sued authorities, alleging they incited the bloodshed by allowing Kyle Rittenhouse and other armed civilians who clashed with protesters to “mete out punishment as they saw fit.”
The federal lawsuit filed in Milwaukee on behalf of Anthony Huber’s estate seeks unspecified damages against Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth; Daniel Miskinis, the former city of Kenosha police chief; and Eric Larsen, the city’s acting police chief; as well as unnamed officers and deputies.
Last Aug. 25, Rittenhouse traveled to Kenosha from his former home in Antioch, Illinois, and joined numerous individuals armed with rifles who inserted themselves into chaotic demonstrations that raged for three nights in the city just over the Wisconsin border.
They clashed with demonstrators who had assembled after a white Kenosha police officer shot a Black man during a domestic disturbance. The man, Jacob Blake, is paralyzed from the waist down.
Prosecutors said Rittenhouse, at the time 17 and carrying an assault-style rifle, opened fire on Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Huber, 26, of Silver Lake, killing both. A third man, Gaige Grosskreutz, was shot in the arm but survived.
John Huber and Karen Bloom maintain their son, Anthony, who was among demonstrators protesting the police shooting, is a hero who sacrificed his life to protect others. Authorities say Huber, toting his skateboard, was trying to disarm Rittenhouse shortly after the teen shot and killed Rosenbaum.
—Chicago Tribune
Twitter will let users report misinformation for first time
Twitter Inc. is adding an option for users to report misinformation to the company, but says the expanded ability to flag tweets won’t necessarily lead to more fact-checking or labels on problematic posts.
The test, available only in a few markets, will let users notify the company about alleged misinformation in the same way they can alert Twitter to spam or abuse. But the social media company, which doesn’t have a robust fact-checking operation,won’t review the legitimacy of each identified tweet or respond to users with updates as it does with other types of reports.
Instead, Twitter will use the reports as a way to study misinformation on the platform and identify trends or problem areas to focus on, a spokeswoman said. Twitter only fact-checks tweets from select categories, like elections and COVID-19, but users can alert the company to any misinformation. Twitter may add more categories to the fact-checking operation based on the results of the test, which will run in the U.S., Australia and South Korea.
“We may not take action on and cannot respond to each report in the experiment,” the company tweeted Tuesday from one of its corporate accounts. “But your input will help us identify trends so that we can improve the speed and scale of our broader misinformation work.”
—Bloomberg News
Iran expands uranium enrichment, watchdog says, amid stalled talks
VIENNA — Iran has expanded the production of nearly weapons grade uranium, international inspectors said on Tuesday.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said the Islamic Republic has begun enriching uranium to a purity of 60% at a second production unit that came online at its Natanz nuclear facility. Ninety percent is considered weapons-grade.
According to the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and a group of world powers, enrichment must stay below 4%.
Tehran has been flouting the limit, arguing it needs a highly purified form for medical purposes.
The Vienna-based IAEA also announced that Iran had already produced 200 grams of uranium metal enriched to 20%.
Tehran claims to be developing fuel for a research reactor in this way. However, Western states see this as a possible attempt to gain know-how for the production of nuclear warheads, which are made from uranium metal material.
Indirect talks between Iran and the United States to salvage the 2015 nuclear deal began in April, but several rounds of meetings have failed to achieve a breakthrough.
The negotiations are currently on hold, although it is assumed they will resume in September with a fresh envoy to the talks appointed by new Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.
—dpa
