Summary
Here’s a wrap of what we covered today, from myself and fellow bloggers Joan E Greve and Martin Pengelly:
- The number of US cases of coronavirus has surpassed 3m. The country has confirmed far more cases than any other country in the world and now accounts for about a quarter of global cases.
- The US vice-president, Mike Pence, urged schools to reopen despite the pandemic, echoing comments from Trump. During a White House coronavirus task force briefing at the US department of education, Pence said, “It’s time for us to get our kids back to school.” But many school officials are expressing doubts about their ability to safely reopen their doors.
- Trump threatened to withhold funding from schools that don’t reopen. The president also criticized the school reopening guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as “very tough” and “expensive”.
- The supreme court sided with the Trump administration in a birth control case. In a 7-2 decision written by the conservative justice Clarence Thomas, the court ruled that the administration was allowed to expand exemptions to private employers seeking to opt out of the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive coverage mandate.
- Lt Col Alexander Vindman, a key witness in the Trump impeachment inquiry, announced he was retiring from the US army. Vindman’s lawyer said he made the decision to retire after more than 21 years of service because the White House had launched a “campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation” against him.
- Six taskforces designed to unify the Democratic party after a contentious primary have submitted policy recommendations to Joe Biden. They pushing the Biden to adopt more ambitious proposals on issues from climate change to criminal justice reform.
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Trump met with the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador. The two leaders touted the US-Mexico-Canada trade deal, and exchanged praise despite Trump’s track record of denigrating Mexican immigrants and threatening the country with tariffs.
Updated
For updates from around the world, follow The Guardian’s live global coronavirus coverage:
A sixth prisoner on death row in California has died from coronavirus, according to officials. Amid a devastating outbreak in the state’s prisons, more than 5,000 have contracted Covid-19.
Nearly 1,400 of the 3,500 prisoners at San Quentin, California’s oldest correctional facility with the state’s only death row for men, have contracted the virus. Although California has a moratorium on the death penalty, six people on death row, and 30 prisoners overall, have died since the pandemic struck.
How did this happen? My colleagues Abené Clayton and Mario Koran reported earlier:
Organizers and attorneys say the outbreak in the facility can be traced back to the transfer of almost 200 people the CDCR considered highly vulnerable to Covid-19 from the California Institution for Men (CIM) in Chino to San Quentin and Corcoran state prisons. At the time, CIM had over 450 Covid-19 cases while San Quentin had zero reported infections and Corcoran had one.
Within three weeks of the transfer, San Quentin had 499 infected individuals and Corcoran had 148.
Meanwhile, advocates worry that prison transfers from San Quentin to other facilities have sparked new infections. In Lassen county, almost 300 miles from the San Francisco Bay Area, positive cases at the California correctional center have shot from zero to 210 within a week following a June transfer from San Quentin.
Read more background:
The Ivy League announced that it has put all sports on hold, ruling out holding any games this fall due to the coronavirus pandemic. It is the first Division I conference to say that will not play football as scheduled this year.
“The campus policies make it impractical for competition to occur, at least through the end of the fall semester,” the executive director Robin Harris told ESPN. The Ivy League colleges announced restrictions for students in the coming semester. Harvard said it would only allow 40% of its students to return to campus, and hold all classes remotely.
“It’s certainly the right decision for the Ivy League, but it’s difficult,” Harris said. Student-athletes will still be able to practice on campus, but with safety precautions in place.
Updated
Nine in 10 Americans believe that racism and police violence are problems in the country, a Guardian/Opinium Research poll has found, a sign that public opinion is shifting away from the views put forward by Donald Trump.
The US president has been criticised for relentlessly stoking white fear and grievance in recent weeks, putting him at odds with Black Lives Matter anti-racism protests that have swept the nation following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May.
But the Opinium survey of 2,000 US adults, conducted for the Guardian between 19 and 24 June, suggests that Trump is out of sync with the mood across the political spectrum.
Some 91% of Americans now agree that racism is a problem in the US and 72% deem it is a serious one. Similarly, 89% think police violence is a problem and 65% consider it serious.
Donald Trump, who has villanized and denigrated Mexican migrants and threatened Mexico with tariffs, took a different tone with Obrador today.
During the meeting, when two protectionist presidents were ironically touting a trade deal, celebrating the US-Mexico-Canada trade deal, both leaders had cordial words for each other.
“We have received from you, President Trump, understanding and respect,” Obrador said, leaving out that Trump had baselessly called Mexican immigrants “rapists” and criminals, and has made a border walk a cornerstone of his campaign and presidency.
“We’re cherished friends, partners, and neighbors,” Trump said of Obrador.
Joe Biden’s take:
Trump launched his 2016 campaign by calling Mexicans rapists.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 8, 2020
He's spread racism against our Latino community ever since.
We need to work in partnership with Mexico.
We need to restore dignity and humanity to our immigration system.
That's what I'll do as President.
My colleague Sam Levine reports:
One of the most closely-watched voting rights disputes in America reached the US supreme court on Wednesday as voting rights groups asked the court to take emergency action to allow those with felony convictions to vote in an upcoming August election.
The dispute involves a law in Florida, a key battleground state, that requires people with felony convictions to repay any fines and fees they owe before they can vote in the state. Republicans passed the law in 2019 after voters overwhelmingly repealed the state’s lifetime ban on voting for people with felonies. The groups challenging the measure say it amounts to a poll tax. More than 774,000 people can’t vote in the state because of a felony conviction.
In late May, US District Judge Robert Hinkle ruled that Florida must allow people with felonies to vote again if they cannot repay fines and fees they owe. During a lengthy trial in April and May, it became clear that Florida did not even have a centralized system for figuring out how much money people owe. Those who owe money as part of a sentence can accumulate fines and fees unrelated to their crime as they move through the system, making it extremely difficult to pay them off and vote again.
Florida appealed the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th circuit, which issued a brief ruling temporarily blocking Hinkle’s decision while the appeal was pending. The court offered no explanation for its decision.
The appeals court decision, lawyers wrote in their brief to the supreme court, threatened to create more confusion and would send the state into chaos since people with felony convictions - including some who have already registered requested mail-in ballots - are now unsure if they can legally vote. Even before the decision, there was already mass confusion about the law.
“Three-quarters of a million Floridians deserve better than this. They are entitled to vote, and they are entitled to do so in the August primary and to register in time for the November general election,” the lawyers wrote. “It is not hyperbole to say the court of appeals has risked chaos, confusion, disenfranchisement in upcoming elections.”
Updated
Trump’s rally in Tulsa likely caused a spike in cases. From the Associated Press:
Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa in late June that drew thousands of participants and large protests “likely contributed” to a dramatic surge in new coronavirus cases, Tulsa City-County Health Department Director Dr. Bruce Dart said Wednesday.
Tulsa County reported 261 confirmed new cases on Monday, a one-day record high, and another 206 cases on Tuesday. By comparison, during the week before the June 20 Trump rally, there were 76 cases on Monday and 96 on Tuesday.
Although the health department’s policy is to not publicly identify individual settings where people may have contracted the virus, Dart said those large gatherings “more than likely” contributed to the spike.
“In the past few days, we’ve seen almost 500 new cases, and we had several large events just over two weeks ago, so I guess we just connect the dots,” Dart said.
Trump’s Tulsa rally, his first since the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S., attracted thousands of people from around the country. About 6,200 people gathered inside the 19,000-seat BOK Center arena — far fewer than was expected.
Updated
Earlier today, Trump met with Mexico’s president Obrador in Washington DC. For The Guardian, David Agren reports from Mexico City:
As he campaigned for the presidency, Donald Trump promised to build a “big beautiful wall” along the US-Mexico border, claiming it would keep migrants out of the country and stop everything from drugs to disease.
But with Covid-19 cases surging on both sides of the frontier, towns in northern Mexico are pleading to restrict cross-border movement – this time to stop tourists and travellers bringing in coronavirus from the US.
Over the weekend, townspeople in Sonoyta on the Arizona border used their own vehicles to block the road leading to Puerto Peñasco, a beach town on the Sea of Cortés popular with US tourists – and they plan to repeat the process this week.
“We invite US tourists not to visit Mexico,” Sonoyta’s mayor, José Ramos Arzate, said in a statement. “We agreed on this to safeguard the health of our community in the face of an accelerated rate of Covid-19 contagion in the neighboring state of Arizona.”
Coronavirus cases have mushroomed in several US border states, including Arizona and Texas, which both botched attempts at reopening. Despite the data showing a runaway growth in case figures in the US, Trump has reportedly sought to blame Mexico for the crisis and erroneously claimed Tijuana was “heavily infected with covid”.
California reports daily coronavirus high
A dispatch from our west coast office, on California’s regathering storm and Governor Gavin Newsom’s moves to ride it:
California reported more than 9,000 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, a new high in daily cases. New cases actually topped 11,000, said Newsom, though he attributed about 2,000 to a reporting backlog.
The state is seeing red flags across the board. In the past two weeks, hospitalizations have risen to 6,100, a 44% increase. Admissions to intensive care have climbed by 34%.
While testing is up, so is the percentage of positive cases, which has risen above 7%. In the early weeks of the pandemic, the state’s positivity rate topped 40%, largely due to scarcity of tests that meant only those showing clear signs of infection could access testing.
This week, the state added three counties to a “watch list” of areas where public health experts closely monitor case spikes and hospital capacity.
Carmela Coyle, president and chief executive of the California Hospital Association, said doctors have learned a lot in the past four months.
“We’re preparing to surge, but we’re going to surge differently this time. We have different tools, and we’ve learned a lot about how to care for Covid-positive patients. We’re putting less patients on ventilators; we have remdesivir.”,
That is a therapeutic drug that has been found to shorten the time to recovery in adults hospitalized with Covid-19.
Public health officials continue to field questions on who is getting sick. While Newsom has previously pointed to the “young and invincible” who fail to take safety precautions because they feel immune, on Wednesday he recognized the toll the pandemic has taken on “essential workers”.
“There’s a little bit of mythology about reopening the economy,” he said, adding that while some of the state previously shut down, 60% of its economy kept moving. Those who kept working outside the home included farmworkers, grocery store employees and others doing jobs that are “overrepresented in the black and brown community”, Newsom said.
According to state public health data, Latinos represent an outsized portion of cases.
George Floyd police bodycam transcripts published
The New York Times has published stunning and upsetting details of transcripts from police body cameras worn during the killing of George Floyd, an African American man, in Minneapolis on 25 May.
Floyd’s death set off protests against police brutality and structural racism which continue to fuel a national reckoning on race and American identity.
Derek Chauvin, the officer who kneeled on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, is charged with murder. Three others are charged with aiding and abetting murder.
According to the Times, the transcripts are included in court filings by lawyers for former officer Thomas Lane, seeking to have charges against him thrown out.
Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times. “I can’t breathe” was already a slogan of the Black Lives Matter movement, since the death in an illegal chokehold of Eric Garner on Staten Island in 2014.
“Come on, man,” Floyd says in one published transcript. “Oh, oh. I cannot breathe. I cannot breathe. They’ll kill me. They’ll kill me. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.”
Lane is recorded asking Chauvin if Floyd should be turned over, and saying he is worried Floyd may be having a medical emergency.
Chauvin responds: “Well that’s why we got the ambulance coming.”
“OK, I suppose,” Lane replies, later adding: “I think he’s passing out.”
In another comment recorded in the transcripts, Floyd says: “Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I’m dead.”
The arrest was over a report that Floyd had used a counterfeit $20 bill at a grocery store.
McEnany repeatedly links school closures to child abuse, saying studies show reporting of such abuse falls when schools are closed. It’s not very sensitive, at best, to make that her go-to reason for arguing schools should reopen, when teachers unions, parents, administrators and most other interested groups simply want to reopen as soon as possible but as safely as possible too.
We haven’t got to Mary Trump’s book yet, oddly.
McEanany promises “a safe event, a good event” in Jacksonville next month when the Republican convention comes to town. With covid cases spiking in Florida, that might be a clip which is repeated.
Trump mentioned the White House was “flexible” about Jacksonville earlier – McEnany doesn’t say the convention could switch elsewhere or even back to Charlotte, North Carolina.
McEnany is about to leave, so she reads out information about the mayor of Kansas City writing to the governor about increased violent crime and an initiative from Attorney General William Barr to tackle it. It’s called Operation LeGend, and it’s named after a four-year-old who was killed in gun violence in Kansas City in June.
And another brief briefing is done.
On Trump’s taxes and financial records – what happens if the supreme court rules against him? McEnany won’t answer.
Payment for the wall did not come up when Trump met President Lopez Obrador earlier, McEnany adds, adding that she has nothing new on the new attempt to trash Daca, the order which protects undocumented migrants brought into the US as children. Immigration “came up briefly” in the Mexico meeting, she says, but she won’t get into their private conversations.
“I’m not going to get ahead of the president” could be McEnany’s catchphrase, and obviously it’s quite wise because no one ever knows what Trump is going to say next. She brings it out twice, on China/Hong Kong and Israel/Palestine.
What did Trump mean about taking funding from schools when he tweeted about it this morning? Nothing from McEnany first time – a repeat that Trump wants more money for schools in the next relief bill. Second time, McEnany just insists Trump wants students back in schools all at the same time, and it’s for the children’s own goods.
McEnany is asked about the children’s safety – she says Trump will stand up to teachers’ unions who want to keep schools closed. They don’t, of course, but they do want to keep teachers and children safe during a pandemic.
McEnany is asked when Trump will detail his plans for a second term. She says he is looking to “substantially bump up money for education” in the immediate term, in the context of further coronavirus stimulus or relief payments.
Might he speak about it this Saturday in New Hampshire? McEnany says Trump will be talking about rebuilding the economy, among “conservative policies he’s looking at for a second term”.
About the rally in New Hampshire, a reporter refers to a surge in Covid cases in Tulsa after a rally there last month. Why does Trump not require masks at his rallies?
McEnany says CDC guidelines are that masks are “recommended not required” and that is why the campaign makes them available but not mandatory at its events.
The first question is about why Donald Trump hasn’t answered questions from White House reporters in two weeks, which McEnany neatly dodges.
She is then asked about why coronavirus task force member Anthony Fauci isn’t appearing at briefings or on TV very much. She reels off stats about when Fauci did appear recently, the last date being 29 June. She is asked if Trump has confidence in Fauci but dodges the question – which is potentially the same as a no.
Trump attacked Fauci this morning – here’s the report on that – and has clashed with the CDC over schools reopening plans. McEnany says Trump doesn’t like “several” of the CDC guidelines about reopening and confirms they will be remade.
New guidelines are due next week. McEnany says this is not because Trump didn’t like them but says he expressed his opinion on Twitter for all to see. Reporters are on this one like a dog with a new toy, but McEnany is deflecting with relative ease. Trump “stands on the side of parents who want to see their kids back in school”, she says.
McEnany begins with a statement about the Mexican president’s visit, talking up Trump’s leadership in regards to a country he … hasn’t always been very nice about, and which hasn’t paid for his wall like he said it would … and the USMCA, the trade deal also involving Canada the president pursued to replace Nafta.
Here comes Kayleigh McEnany. The thing about McEnany’s White House press briefings is they tend to be, well, brief. She’s late out for this one but it’s eyes down for, this blogger hopes at least, something less onerous than an old-fashioned coronavirus taskforce briefing, the kind where Trump played all the hits for two hours and more and somehow still left them wanting. Some of them. Sometimes.
Democrats deliver policy recommendations to Biden
Six taskforces designed to unify the Democratic party after a contentious primary have submitted policy recommendations to Joe Biden, pushing the presumptive nominee to adopt more ambitious proposals on issues from climate change to criminal justice reform.
The taskforces were appointed in April to forge a consensus between the party establishment and its activist base in six key policy areas: climate change, criminal justice reform, the economy, education, healthcare and immigration.
The working groups combined supporters of Biden’s rival, Bernie Sanders, with Biden allies and staff. Biden has remained opposed to many of the boldest policy demands from progressives, including Medicare for All, a Green New Deal and the Defund the Police movement. But he has signaled an openness to broadening his platform.
In response to the compounding crises of the coronavirus, its economic fallout and social unrest in response to police brutality against black Americans, Biden has expanded his policy ambitions – at least rhetorically – and insisted that the “blinders” have come off and more Americans are open to big ideas.
A 110-page policy document will be submitted to the Democratic National Committee to consider as it designs the platform ahead of the convention in August.
“For the millions of Americans facing hardship due to President Trump’s failed coronavirus response, this election offers the chance to usher in a stronger, fairer economy that works for our working families,” Biden said in a statement.
“I commend the taskforces for their service and helping build a bold, transformative platform for our party and for our country. And I am deeply grateful to Senator Sanders for working together to unite our party and deliver real, lasting change for generations to come.”
Sanders said: “While Joe Biden and I, and our supporters, have strong disagreements about some of the most important issues facing our country, we also understand that we must come together in order to defeat Donald Trump, the most dangerous president in modern American history.
“Though the end result is not what I or my supporters would have written alone, the taskforces have created a good policy blueprint that will move this country in a much-needed progressive direction and substantially improve the lives of working families.”
Updated
Martin Pengelly here, minding the shop for a bit until my west coast colleagues come on stream at 5pm ET.
Donald Trump and Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador have been speaking to reporters in the Rose Garden, where the pool report reveals the press corps was “spaced out and sweating profusely”.
“POTUS promised to keep it short due to the heat”, the report adds, although Amlo certainly went on a bit with his remarks.
From the outside, the White House has today seemed at times to be planning a Schrödinger’s press briefing, both scheduled and cancelled at the same time. For the moment it’s scheduled again, at 4.30pm.
Kayleigh McEnany can expect questions about the coronavirus pandemic, Mary Trump’s book, Amlo’s visit and more. If precedent is anything to go by, reporters can expect the White House press secretary to deliver a forceful opening statement, combative answers and a scripted walk-off.
Today so far
That’s it from me today. My Guardian colleagues will take over the blog for the next few hours.
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- The number of US cases of coronavirus has surpassed 3 million. The country has confirmed far more cases than any other country in the world and now accounts for about a quarter of global cases.
- Vice President Mike Pence urged schools to reopen despite the pandemic, echoing comments from Trump. During a White House coronavirus task force briefing at the US department of education, Pence said, “It’s time for us to get our kids back to school.” But many school officials are expressing doubts about their ability to safely reopen their doors.
- Trump threatened to withhold funding from schools that don’t reopen. The president also criticized the school reopening guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as “very tough” and “expensive.”
- The supreme court sided with the Trump administration in a birth control case. In a 7-2 decision written by conservative justice Clarence Thomas, the court ruled that the administration was allowed to expand exemptions to private employers seeking to opt out of the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive coverage mandate.
- Lt Col Alexander Vindman, a key witness in the Trump impeachment inquiry, announced he was retiring from the US Army. Vindman’s lawyer said he made the decision to retire after more than 21 years of service because the White House had launched a “campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation” against him.
The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Facebook announced it is removing 54 accounts and 50 pages linked to former Trump associate Roger Stone, who is expected to report to prison next week.
Removing Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior https://t.co/Zpev5CDwKA
— Facebook Newsroom (@fbnewsroom) July 8, 2020
Reuters has more details on the decision:
The social media platform said Stone and his associates, including a prominent supporter of the right-wing Proud Boys group in Stone’s home state of Florida, had used fake accounts and followers to promote Stone’s books and posts.
Facebook moved against Stone on the same day it took down accounts tied to employees of the family of Brazilian leader Jair Bolsonaro and two other networks connected to domestic political operations in Ecuador and Ukraine.
Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, said the removals were meant to show that artificially inflating engagement for political impact would be stopped, no matter how well connected the practitioners.
The latest move by Facebook comes as several social media companies take steps to crack down on hate speech on their platforms, often attracting criticism from the president and his allies.
The National Governors Association is calling on the White House to renew the public health emergency declaration for the coronavirus pandemic, which is currently set to expire on July 25.
#WeTheStates are calling on @WhiteHouse to formally renew the Public Health Emergency declaration for #COVID19, which otherwise would expire July 25. States need every tool available to combat this deadly #pandemic.https://t.co/1D8CgvRRNU
— NGA (@NatlGovsAssoc) July 8, 2020
“The public health emergency facing every state is far from over. Despite months of response to the coronavirus pandemic, many states have hit record numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases, causing many governors to pause or roll back re-openings,” the NGA said in a statement.
“The U.S. government must ensure governors, states and territories continue to have all the tools necessary to manage the COVID-19 surge.”
The group, which represents the governors of all 55 states and territories, said the PHE declaration was needed to ensure states continue to have access to critical resources and funding for testing.
“Without these options, governors’ ability to protect the health and safety of their residents will be reduced at a critical time,” the NGA statement said.
Former Fox News host Shepard Smith is joining CNBC, nine months after leaving his old network following public spats with the president.
CNBC said Smith will anchor a one-hour news program titled The News with Shepard Smith, which will air at 7pm ET starting in the fall.
“Information is coming at us from every direction. If we’re not careful life-altering decisions will be made based on half-truth, rumor, misdirection or worse,” CNBC chairman Mark Hoffman said in a statement.
“We aim to deliver a nightly program that, in some small way, looks for the signal in all the noise. We’re thrilled that Shep, who’s built a career on an honest fight to find and report the facts, will continue his pursuit of the truth at CNBC.”
Shepard Smith:
— JM Rieger (@RiegerReport) October 11, 2019
“Recently I asked the company to allow me to leave Fox News. After requesting that I stay, they obliged. Under our agreement, I won’t be reporting elsewhere, at least in the near future." pic.twitter.com/ZJHszeBHS4
Smith left Fox News in October after repeatedly criticizing Trump for spreading falsehoods and misinformation, attracting the president’s ire on Twitter.
Delivering his final message to Fox viewers, Smith said in Ocrober, “Even in our currently polarized nation, it is my hope that the facts will win the day, that the truth will always matter, that journalism and journalists will thrive.”
New York to reopen schools with hybrid online and in-person instruction
In case you missed it: New York schools plan to reopen this fall by combining some in-person instruction with online learning.
“Most schools will not be able to have all their kids in school at the same time,” New York mayor Bill de Blasio said this morning.
De Blasio said parents would have the option to keep their children home for online-only instruction, but three quarters of New York parents indicated they wanted their children to return to school in a recent survey.
Most students will attend school in person for two to three days a week and take online lessons for the rest of the time.
Through a mix of in-school and at-home learning we can make more space in every classroom and building. That means most kids coming to school 2 days a week.
— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) July 8, 2020
It’s a first for NYC public schools but it’s the only way to bring kids back safely.
“When you think about social distancing, you need more space,” de Blasio said. “You’re going to have fewer kids in a classroom, fewer kids in the school building.”
Shortly after de Blasio announced the plan, New York governor Andrew Cuomo said the proposal would still have to be approved by state officials, as is required for every school district in the state.
The city’s plan is sure to displease Trump, who is pushing for schools to reopen despite lingering concerns about the spread of coronavirus in classrooms.
Vice President Mike Pence echoed Trump’s position earlier today, saying at the White House coronavirus task force briefing, “It’s time for us to get our kids back to school.”
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has arrived at the White House for a meeting with Trump on the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, which went into effect last week.
Trump receives @lopezobrador_ for their bilateral meeting. No hand shake. pic.twitter.com/txz9bcuo9a
— María Peña (@mariauxpen) July 8, 2020
Trump was present to welcome the Mexican president as he arrived, but the two leaders skipped the traditional handshake greeting, which has largely been abandoned amid the current pandemic.
Canadian President Justin Trudeau announced earlier this week that he would not attend the meeting, partly due to concerns over coronavirus.
“We’re obviously concerned about the proposed issue of tariffs on aluminum and steel that the Americans have floated recently,” Trudeau said last week. “We’re also concerned about the health situation and the coronavirus reality that is still hitting all three of our countries.”
Updated
US Defense Secretary Mark Esper had approved Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman for promotion as part of a crop of new promotions due to be sent to the White House in the coming days.
That’s what a senior US defense official told Reuters this afternoon.
The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, presumably because he or she was not authorized to discuss such sensitive information, though Reuters has not yet specified, said Esper had approved the list on Monday with Vindman’s name.
Vindman announced this morning that he was retiring from the military, hounded out by bullying from the White House after his devastating testimony during the impeachment process of Donald Trump, about US foreign policy with regards to Ukraine being corrupted by the president with his eye on domestic political gain.
Joe Biden released a scathing statement after the US surpassed 3 million confirmed cases of coronavirus, blaming Trump for exacerbating the crisis through a lack of federal leadership.
“Today’s awful — and avoidable — news that America surpassed three million Covid-19 cases is yet another sad reminder of the cost our country is paying for President Trump’s failure to lead us through this crisis,” the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said in a statement released by his campaign.
“The American people have sacrificed far too much in this fight for Donald Trump to just admit defeat; they’ve done their job, and it’s long overdue for their courageous efforts to be matched with real action and leadership from the White House.”
The country’s grim milestone comes as polls show Biden leading Trump in several battleground states, with Americans increasingly expressing disapproval of the president’s handling of the pandemic.
Updated
Today so far
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- The US has now confirmed more than 3m cases of coronavirus, far more than any other country in the world. As the Johns Hopkins tracker of US cases surpassed 3m, Mike Pence led a White House cororonavirus task force briefing at the US department of education, urging schools to reopen in the fall despite the pandemic.
- Lt Col Alexander Vindman, a key witness in the Trump impeachment inquiry, announced his retirement from the US Army. In a statement from his lawyer, Vindman said he chose to retire because of “campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation” spearheaded by Trump.
- The supreme court sided with the Trump administration in a birth control case. The justices issued a 7-2 decision in support of the administration’s expanded exemptions for private employers to opt out of covering contraceptives.
The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Updated
The White House coronavirus task force briefing at the US department of education has now concluded.
In one of the last questions of the briefing, Mike Pence was asked why the president threatened to cut off funding to schools that don’t reopen in a tweet this morning.
Pence replied, “What you heard from the president is just a determination to provide the kind of leadership from the federal level that says we’re going to get our kids back to school.”
But schools have said they are having trouble reopening because they do not have the money to safely welcome students back.
Another reporter pressed Pence on whether the White House believed schools should adhere to the CDC’s recommendations on social distancing between students.
Pence responded, “We just don’t want the guidance to be too tough.”
Updated
Mike Pence was pressed on whether Trump’s tweet criticizing the CDC’s guidelines on schools reopening made it easier for school officials to ignore those guidelines.
Pence responded by expressing his confidence in governors and local officials to make the best decisions on ensuring safe reopening for their schools.
The vice president said the CDC guidelines were not meant to “supplant” the judgment of state and local officials and were instead aimed at offering a “range of options” on reopening schools.
Updated
Mike Pence signaled the Trump administration may try to tie school reopenings to states receiving federal financial relief.
Pence said the White House was looking for ways to “give states a strong incentive and encouragement to get kids back to school.”
The comment comes hours after the president threatened to withhold funding from school districts that don’t reopen in the fall.
Congress has been looking at another coronavirus relief bill, which could potentially include proivsions on school reopenings.
Updated
The vice-president, Mike Pence, was asked about the president’s tweet this morning criticizing the CDC’s “very tough & expensive guidelines for opening schools.”
Pence told reporters, “We don’t want the guidance from CDC to be a reason that schools don’t open.” The vice president said Trump’s tweet was meant to convey that sentiment.
Pence added the administration was planning to work with governors and local officials as they crafted their own requirements on schools reopening.
“We really do believe that we can open these schools safely,” Pence said.
Updated
Dr Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, interestingly downplayed his agency’s recommendations on how to safely reopen schools.
Redfield emphasized different schools had diffrerent needs when it came to safely reopening, and he said the recommendations were not meant to encourage schools to remain closed.
“I want to make it very clear that what is not the intent of CDC’s guidelines is to be used as a rationale to keep schools closed,” Redfield said at the task force briefing. “It’s guidance; it’s not requirements,” Redfield later added.
Redfield’s comments come hours after Trump criticized the CDC for its “very tough & expensive guidelines for opening schools.”
Education secretary Betsy DeVos insisted schools must be fully operational this fall, despite concerns about the spread of coronavirus in the classroom.
“Students can and must continue to learn full-time,” DeVos said during the White House coronavirus task force briefing at the department of education.
The eduction secretary criticized Fairfax county school district in nearby Virginia for presenting “false paradigms” between education and safety. The school district had asked parents whether they wanted to convene in-person classes for zero or two days a week.
“It’s not a matter of if schools reopen. It’s simply a matter of how. They must fully open, and they must be fully operational,” DeVos said.
At the White House coronavirus task force briefing, Dr Brett Giroir said there will be a coronavirus testing surge site set up in the Phoenix area.
The senior HHS official said the testing site would be contracted this afternoon to quickly address Phoenix’s surge in new cases.
Arizona has been reporting record levels of new cases in recent weeks, forcing the state to roll back its reopening process.
US hits 3 million confirmed coronavirus cases according to Johns Hopkins tracker
The White House coronavirus task force briefing continues at the US department of education, but the country has just hit another grim milestone in its fight against the virus.
The US has surpassed 3 million confirmed cases of coronavirus, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker. It represents around a quarter of the world’s total cases. Johns Hopkins records that there have been 131,594 deaths among the total of 3,009,611 cases.
On Monday, Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that America’s grasp of the pandemic was “really not good” and that the country was “still knee-deep in the first wave” of coronavirus infections.
The news comes as the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that evidence is emerging that the coronavirus is airborne, which has significant implications for how it spreads indoors, and makes wearing masks potentially even more of a priority.
You can find our dedicated live blog to the global coronavirus crisis over here:
You can also find our state-by-state breakdown of case and death numbers here:
Dr Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, has now taken the podium at the briefing.
Before beginning her analysis of new outbreaks of the virus in the US, Birx thanked the leaders of the Salt River tribe for meeting with her recently in Arizona.
Birx noted she received the mask she is wearing today from the tribe’s leaders. “Masks can be a fashion statement,” Birx said.
All of the officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, arrived at today’s briefing wearing face masks.
Pence: 'It’s time for us to get our kids back to school'
Echoing the president, Mike Pence pushed for the reopening of America’s schools despite lingering concerns over the spread of coronavirus in the classroom.
“It’s time for us to get our kids back to school,” Pence said during the White House coronavirus task force briefing at the US department of education.
Trump made the same argument during an event on school reopenings yesterday, and this morning, he threatened to withhold funding from schools that do not reopen.
The funding threat struck many as counterintuitive, considering a number of school districts have said they do not have the money to safely reopen.
White House coronavirus task force holds briefing
Vice President Mike Pence is leading a White House coronavirus task force briefing at the US department of education.
The briefing comes as the US approaches 3 million confirmed cases of the virus, far more than any other country in the world.
Pence opened the briefing by emphasizing the level of coronavirus testing in the US, saying there is evidence of a flattening of the positivity rate in Arizona, Florida and Texas.
Lt Col Alexander Vindman had been seeking a promotion to the rank of colonel, and the White House was facing accusations of holding up the promotion because of Vindman’s testimony in the impeachment inquiry.
CNN reports:
Top Pentagon leaders, including Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, have insisted that Vindman is not being targeted for political reasons, but a source familiar with his decision said military officials have communicated to Vindman that the White House has sought to become involved in the promotion process.
In response, Vindman was told that that there have been discussions within the Department of Defense about sending his name forward on a ‘list of one’ or holding his name back until after the election to avoid impacting the promotions of other service members, the source said.
It is ‘absurd and frightening’ for the White House to be involved in promotions at this level, the source added.
By retiring, Vindman will clear the way for some of his Army colleagues to receive their expected promotions.
Lt Col Alexander Vindman confirmed in a tweet that he has asked to retire from the US Army after more than two decades of service.
“Today I officially requested retirement from the US Army, an organization I love. My family and I look forward to the next chapter of our lives,” Vindman said.
Today I officially requested retirement from the US Army, an organization I love. My family and I look forward to the next chapter of our lives. pic.twitter.com/h2D9MRUHY2
— Alexander S. Vindman (@AVindman) July 8, 2020
In his statement to CNN, Lt Col Alexander Vindman’s lawyer said the White House had put the administration official in an impossible position.
“The President of the United States attempted to force LTC Vindman to choose: Between adhering to the law or pleasing a President. Between honoring his oath or protecting his career. Between protecting his promotion or the promotion of his fellow soldiers,” lawyer David Pressman said.
“These are choices that no one in the United States should confront, especially one who has dedicated his life to serving it,” Pressman said, arguing that Vindman “did what the law compelled him to do; and for that he was bullied by the President and his proxies.”
The statement was quite the departure from Vindman’s November testimony, in which he applauded American values for allowing him to speak out and celebated his father’s decision to emigrate to the US from the Soviet Union.
“Dad, I’m sitting here today, in the US Capitol talking to our elected professionals — is proof that you made the right decision 40 years ago to leave the Soviet Union. Do not worry, I will be fine for telling the truth,” Vindman said at the time.
Key impeachment witness Vindman to retire, blames White House retaliation - report
Lt Col Alexander Vindman, a key witness in the Trump impeachment inquiry, has reportedly decided to retire from the Army, citing a retaliation campaign from the White House.
CNN reports:
[Vindman] is retiring from the US Army after more than 21 years of military service because he determined that his future in the armed forces ‘will forever be limited’ due to political retaliation by the President and his allies, his lawyer told CNN Wednesday.
Vindman has endured a ‘campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation’ spearheaded by the President following his testimony in the impeachment inquiry last year, according to his attorney, Amb. David Pressman. ...
Ultimately, Vindman decided to retire from the military rather than attending the National War College, which was his next planned assignment, after speaking with senior Army officials who made clear that there were forces working against his advancement within the military.
Specifically, Vindman was told by senior Army officials that he would no longer be deployable in his area of expertise, which includes Ukraine, the source familiar with the situation told CNN.
Trump fired Vindman, who was serving as the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, in February.
The move was seen as part of a pattern of demotions and firings of top administration officials who testified in the impeachment inquiry.
The supreme court is expected to release its decisions in Trump v Mazars and Trump v Vance tomorrow morning.
The cases center on whether the president’s tax returns and business records can be turned over to House committees and New York prosecutors, who have issued subpoenas for the documents.
During oral arguments in the cases, the court seemed more inclined to rule against the president in Trump v Vance, which involves the subpoenas issued by Cy Vance, the district attorney for the county of New York.
But if the court rules against Trump in that case, it does not necessarily mean the public will see the president’s tax returns anytime soon.
A winning ruling for Vance would mean Trump’s tax information would be made available to a grand jury, but that information is legally required to be kept secret.
Even if the court also sides with the House committees, the tax returns could remain secret because the House subpoenas do not explictly request them.
So it seems unlikely that the details of the president’s finances will be revealed before the November election.
The US supreme court has upheld a broad expansion by the Trump administration of the pool of employers that can use religious objections to deny women insurance coverage for contraception.
The ruling in Little Sisters of the Poor v Pennsylvania, which struck down a lower court decision, could deprive up to 125,000 women of contraceptive coverage, Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned during oral arguments in the case in May.
The Affordable Care Act, passed under Barack Obama, required employers to cover “preventive care” – a category including certain types of contraception – free of charge, allowing for some exemptions for churches and religious groups.
Corporations run by families with religious objections to covering the costs of contraception won exemption from the law in a subsequent high-profile supreme court decision, Burwell v Hobby Lobby (2014).
But soon after Trump took office, his administration issued new, much broader exemptions, which the states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey challenged in court.
Under Trump’s rules, any nonprofit employer or any for-profit employer in a company not publicly traded could claim an objection of conscience and be exempted from offering plans that included coverage for contraception.
Supreme court will announce decision on Trump's financial records tomorrow
The supreme court has also announced that tomorrow will be the last day for opinions to be issued for this term.
What that means for Trump is that he will receive an answer tomorrow morning on whether his financial records will be turned over to House committees and New York prosecutors.
The cases involving subpoenas for the president’s financial records is the last remaining major case of this court term.
Updated
Supreme court sides with Trump administration in birth-control case
The supreme court has ruled in favor of the Trump administration in a case regarding expanded exemptions for the Affordable Care Act’s contraception coverage mandate.
The court issued a 7-2 ruling that the administration was allowed to expand exemptions to private companies who have religious or moral objections to the mandate.
Conservative justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the ruling, “We hold that the Departments had the authority to provide exemptions from the regulatory contraceptive requirements for employers with religious and conscientious objections. We accordingly reverse the Third Circuit’s judgment and remand with instructions to dissolve the nationwide preliminary injunction.”
Supreme court rules against teachers at religious schools claiming employment discrimination
The supreme court has issued its first opinion this morning, and it is a ruling in the case of Our Lady of Guadalupe School v Morrissey-Berru.
The case centered on whether teachers at religious schools with minimal religious duties can file employment-discrimination claims, or if they are subject to the “ministerial exception,” which blocks the government from weighing in on church’s hiring decisions.
The court issued a 7-2 decision that the teachers were barred from filing employment-discrimination lawsuits.
Conservative justice Samuel Alito wrote in the decision, “What matters, at bottom, is what an employee does. And implicit in our decision in Hosanna-Tabor was a recognition that educating young people in their faith, inculcating its teachings, and training them to live their faith are responsibilities that lie at the very core of the mission of a private religious school.”
Trump’s tweet about schools reopening also overlooks the fact that the European countries he listed are not reporting tens of thousands of new coronavirus cases each day, as the US is.
In his tweet, the president said, “In Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and many other countries, SCHOOLS ARE OPEN WITH NO PROBLEMS.”
But each of those countries are reporting, at most, a few hundred news cases a day. In contrast, the US has recently been reporting more than 50,000 new cases every day.
Trump threatens schools' funding to force reopenings
This is Joan Greve in Washington, taking over for Martin Belam.
Trump is on Twitter this morning once again insisting that schools reopen in the fall, but the president has now added a funding threat to his pleas.
“In Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and many other countries, SCHOOLS ARE OPEN WITH NO PROBLEMS,” Trump said in a tweet. “The Dems think it would be bad for them politically if U.S. schools open before the November Election, but is important for the children & families. May cut off funding if not open!
In Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and many other countries, SCHOOLS ARE OPEN WITH NO PROBLEMS. The Dems think it would be bad for them politically if U.S. schools open before the November Election, but is important for the children & families. May cut off funding if not open!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 8, 2020
In reality, many administrators, teachers and parents have expressed concerns about sending students back to school as concerns remain over the spread of coronavirus in the classroom.
Many school districts have also warned they do not have the additional funding needed to keep students safe, and the president is now threatening to cut off funding from them if they don’t reopen.
In a separate tweet, Trump criticized the school reopening guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as “very tough” and “expensive.” He said he would be meeting with CDC officials to discuss the guidelines.
I disagree with @CDCgov on their very tough & expensive guidelines for opening schools. While they want them open, they are asking schools to do very impractical things. I will be meeting with them!!!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 8, 2020
Joe Biden on Tuesday assailed Donald Trump for questioning the patriotism of Senator Tammy Duckworth – a combat veteran and Purple Heart recipient who lost both her legs while serving in Iraq.
At a virtual fundraiser attended by Duckworth last night, Biden called Trump’s comments “disgusting” and “sickening” and said they are a “reflection of the depravity of what’s going on in the White House right now.
Trump’s criticism followed a reprehensible monologue from Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, which claimed that the Illinois senator “despise[s] America” because she said there should be a “national dialogue” on the removal of monuments to the founding fathers, including the nation’s first president, George Washington, who owned slaves.
Trump shared Carlson’s rant about Duckworth on Twitter and his campaign issued a statement accusing her of “using her military service to deflect from her support for the left-wing campaign to villainize America’s founding.”
Duckworth replied to Carlson on Twitter, challenging him to “walk a mile in my legs and then tell me whether or not I love America?”
Biden said he was “glad” that he “wasn’t standing next to President Trump”, implying he might have physically challenged the president over his attacks on Duckworth. But Biden quickly acknowledged that the war veteran and US senator could handle herself and needed no help from him in standing up to the president.
Duckworth is among several women Biden is considering as a running mate.
“While in fact he’s coddling Putin — Putin carries him around like a puppy in one of those little puppy cages,” Biden continued, attacking Trump for not taking action in response to the Russian bounty intelligence. “While that’s going on he attacks, he attacks the senator from Illinois who is a literal hero, combat veteran, lost both legs fighting for her country, and he says she’s not a patriot. Folks we cannot let this stand.”
Updated
The Cook Political Report have published the latest of their monthly assessments of where November’s election might be heading - and they say it is looking “more like a Democratic tsunami than simply a Blue wave.”
Amy Walter writes: “Republican strategists we’ve spoken with this week think Donald Trump is close to the point of no return. A couple of others wondered if Trump had reached his ‘Katrina’ moment: a permanent loss of trust and faith of the majority of voters.”
Based on current polling, they have Joe Biden easily clearing the threshold of votes he needs, with only Arizona, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina as “toss-up” states. They have Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, all states that Trump carried in 2016, as now leaning to Biden.
You can read it all here: Cook Political Report – New July 2020 Electoral College Ratings
Yesterday Dr. Anthony Fauci cautioned in a press conference that “It’s a false narrative to take comfort in a lower rate of death. There’s so many other things that are very dangerous and bad about this virus, don’t get yourself into false complacency.”
Last night president Donald Trump tweeted:
Death Rate from Coronavirus is down tenfold!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 8, 2020
Madeline Holcombe over at CNN has a good run-down on the latest state of play with the coronavirus figures
The United States saw a record number of 60,021 new cases on Tuesday, and 35 states are seeing growing numbers of new cases from last week. ICUs at 56 hospitals in Florida have reached capacity. California hospitalizations are at an all-time high, and Texas had its highest single day increase in coronavirus cases yesterday, with 10,028 new cases.
It’s worth a read just to get a grip on how bleak the situation is becoming in some states: CNN – Death rates may be down, but coronavirus cases and hospitalizations are surging
Harvard and MIT sue to overturn order banning international students
According to reports in both Harvard Magazine and Harvard Crimson, Harvard and MIT are to sue the Trump Administration to overturn the ruling that overseas students whose courses are to be delivered wholly online cannot come into the US.
The Harvard Crimson quotes university president Lawrence S. Bacow saying in an email that “The order came down without notice—its cruelty surpassed only by its recklessness. We believe that the ICE order is bad public policy, and we believe that it is illegal.”
You can read more here: Harvard Crimson – Harvard, MIT sue immigration authorities over rule barring international students from online-only universities
Sam Levine has been reporting for us on the way that mail in ballots can be rejected for seemingly trivial reasons.
The vast majority of ballots that go uncounted are rejected for three reasons: the ballot arrives late, there is a problem with the signature on it, or there is no signature at all. Many states don’t count ballots if they arrive after election day, regardless of when they were put in the mail. But they can also reject ballots if election officials determine the signature on the ballot doesn’t match one in a voter’s file – a decision that can be left to the whims of election officials with little guidance.
Levine looks at how problems that have occurred already in this year’s Covid-19 affected primary ballots signal potentially huge problems ahead for November’s elections.
Read it here: ‘It’s egregious’: thousands of mail-in ballots could be rejected over small errors
SCOTUS confirms that Chief Justice Roberts was hospitalised after a fall last month
Overnight it has been confirmed by the Supreme Court that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. had an overnight stay in hospital last month, following a fall at a Maryland country club.
The story was broken by the Washington Post, who say they received a tip about the incident, which otherwise would not have been disclosed. The person who informed the paper about it described Roberts’ head as being “covered in blood” after the fall. Roberts has previously had seizures, although this has apparently been ruled out in this case.
The court’s statement reads:
The Chief Justice was treated at a hospital on June 21 for an injury to his forehead sustained in a fall while walking for exercise near his home. The injury required sutures, and out of an abundance of caution, he stayed in the hospital overnight and was discharged the next morning. His doctors ruled out a seizure. They believe the fall was likely due to light-headedness caused by dehydration.
There’s no specific mandate that the nine members of the court have to disclose medical information.
Away from coronavirus for a moment, one of the things that just won’t go away for Donald Trump are questions over his administration’s handling of intelligence suggesting that Vladimir Putin’s Russia were offering bounties to the Taliban for attacks on US military personnel in Afghanistan.
Last night Alabama Democratic Party Sen. Doug Jones was interviewed on MSNBC’s The Last Word, and he was pretty stringent about what he saw as Trump’s failings over the issue, saying:
It should be very troubling to all Americans that an adversary like Russia is creating this kind of atmosphere of fear. [The biggest problem] I think for me and most folks in Alabama is, why hasn’t the commander-in-chief stood up and said “We are going to get to the bottom of this right now, and I’m going to demand some answers from Vladimir Putin and others.”
It doesn’t matter if people can agree to disagree within that intelligence community. The one thing that the commander-in-chief ought to be doing is getting answers, and letting the American people know that he will take the appropriate action should he find that it was absolutely true.
You can watch the clip here: Sen. Doug Jones - Trump needs to get answers about Russian bounty reports
Why is the US falling behind in Covid-19 fight? Peter Sullivan thinks he has the answer in a piece over on The Hill this morning.
Major European countries for the most part had much stricter and more sustained lockdowns than the US did, allowing the virus to be suppressed to low levels before they tried to reopen. Elsewhere, notably South Korea, an aggressive system of testing, treatment and isolation was able to suppress the virus without resorting to a full lockdown. Other places have had success in part due to mandatory mask requirements throughout the country. All of these elements are missing in the United States. And more broadly, experts say the US simply does not seem to be taking the virus as seriously as other countries.
In the course of the piece there is a warning from Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, about what the worst-hit states need to do - and quickly:
[If] Arizona, Texas and Florida really aggressively implemented and enforced a universal masking rule, if all of them closed down any real indoor gatherings and pushed hard on testing and tracing, and if they’d started like yesterday, then I think there’s a chance that all of them can get away without having to go to shelter in place. But I’m worried that the longer we take and the more incremental we are in each of these places, the more they’re going to find themselves at some point with no other choice
You can read it in full here: The Hill - Why the US is falling behind in Covid-19 fight
Texas is now one of the worst affected states for new coronavirus cases in the US.
Nearly 80% of the state’s hospital beds are in use, and intensive care units are filling up in some of the nation’s biggest cities, including San Antonio and Houston, where leaders are warning their health facilities could become overwhelmed in the coming days. In all, Texas has recorded more than 2,670 deaths and more than 200,000 confirmed cases of the virus.
Nomaan Merchant has been reporting from Houston for Associated Press on what the situation is like on the ground there - and how relaxing restrictions on gatherings appears to have contributed to the new cases.
He cites the example of one family. A few weeks after more than 100 people attended one man’s funeral, his wife herself was on the brink of death.
Her oxygen levels had fallen deadly low due to complications from Covid-19, and her heart stopped. Ten people, each in two layers of protective equipment, reports Merchant, surrounded her hospital bed. Two climbed on opposite sides of the bed one pressing on her chest, the other on her abdomen. At the foot of the bed, Dr. Joseph Varon called out a rhythm: one-two, one-two, one-two.
“Keep on pumping!” he yelled. But they couldn’t save her.
At least 10 people who were at the funeral later developed coronavirus symptoms, according to the woman’s daughter, who fell sick herself. Most people weren’t wearing masks. Her daughter says her mother told her she wished they had been more careful.
“We didn’t take precautions like we should have,” the daughter told Merchant. “We just got totally caught up in the moment.”
Now, says Merchant, the 66-year-old Latina woman’s death is a grim warning for Texas, which has seen a surge in the number of people testing positive for the coronavirus since it began aggressively loosening restrictions in May.
Hospitalizations due to Covid-19 in the state have more than doubled in the last two weeks, and Texas is reporting, on average, more than four times as many cases each day as it was a month ago. It surpassed 10,000 new confirmed cases in a single day Tuesday.
While rising case numbers partly reflect more testing, Texas has a positive test rate of 13.5%, more than double the rate from a month ago.
“We’re going to get into situations like Italy did, like Spain did, like New York did just a couple of months ago,” said Varon, board chair at United Memorial Medical Center, a small north Houston hospital.
United Memorial has been rapidly dedicating more and more space to virus care. Now, 88 of 117 beds are devoted to such patients and Varon says the hospital may soon turn over the entire facility to treating those with the virus.
Outside, the Associated Press reports, long lines of cars wait hours for tests.
The hospital has taped off three separate wings with a sequence of large tarps and gates.
Assisting Varon is a team of nurses and volunteer medical students. Anyone seeing a patient with Covid-19 is required to wear two sets of masks, gowns, gloves, shoe and head coverings, and a face shield.
Varon has worked more than 100 days with barely a rest and normally sleeps just a few hours a night. When he isn’t seeing patients or trying to obtain more hospital supplies, he does media interviews to encourage people to wear masks and take the virus seriously.
“People need to see this so they can understand and won’t do stupid things,” he said.
With the US expected to hit three million coronavirus cases today, Axios have some charts here of the death rates in specific states. It is worth noting that while the mortality rate overall for the US has dropped from “around 7% in mid-April to around 2% by early July” that isn’t true across the board. And the number of daily deaths are ticking up at the moment in a handful of crisis states, among them Florida, Texas and Arizona.
Read it here: Axios - Coronavirus deaths are rising in hotspots
You may have seen yesterday the front page of the Miami Herald summing up the horns of the dilemma that the US finds itself in over coronavirus. Their lead story was about restaurants and bars in Miami-Dade County having to close again because of a surge in Covid-19 cases. Their second story? The state pushing through for the reopening of schools as soon as possible.
CNN’s Stephen Collinson has been looking at Donald Trump’s positioning over school reopenings this morning:
The thorny task of reopening America’s schools, amid fears of a lost generation of school kids unless lessons resume, is a microcosm of the administration’s slapdash approach. While demanding a return to normal - in business, education, leisure and even sports - the White House has rarely provided guidance on how such steps can be taken safely. It has left it to states, cities and individuals to fend their own battles in adopting a hard-core definition of federalism that rejects any traditional notion of presidential duty. Trump’s self-serving implication that his opponents want to keep schools closed to hurt him politically ignores the complicated concerns that administrators, teachers and parents harbor over the prospect of schools staying closed - and the dangers that are inherent in getting classes up and running again.
You can read it in full here: CNN - Trump leans into old failures in push to reopen schools as virus roars
Poll finds nine in 10 Americans believe racism and police violence are problems
Nine in 10 Americans believe that racism and police violence are problems in the country, a Guardian/Opinium Research poll has found, a sign that public opinion is shifting away from the views put forward by Donald Trump.
Some 91% of Americans now agree that racism is a problem in the US and 72% deem it is a serious one. Similarly, 89% think police violence is a problem and 65% consider it serious.
My Washington colleague David Smith has more on the details here: Nine out of 10 Americans say racism and police brutality are problems, poll finds
Amy Kennedy projected to win New Jersey’s second congressional district primary
Joe Biden has won New Jersey’s mostly mail-in Democratic presidential primary. Bernie Sanders still picked up 12% of the vote, despite having pulled out of the race.
The primary got pushed a month later than planned because of the Covid-19 pandemic, and Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy mandated that the election take place mostly by mail-in ballots. New Jersey’s 14 electoral college votes have gone to Democrats in every presidential election since 1988.
In the most keenly watched primary race yesterday though, Amy Kennedy has the edge in the battle to face Jeff Van Drew in New Jersey’s second congressional district. Van Drew defected from the Democratic party to the Republicans last fall, after disagreeing with the party hierarchy over the impeachment of Donald Trump.
With 254 of 523 precincts reporting so far, Kennedy has wrapped up 59.3%. Her nearest challenger is Brigid Callahan Harrison on 25.5%.
“My message to Jeff Van Drew tonight is we have had enough and we demand better,” Kennedy said. “We have had enough division and hate and selfishness. We have had enough of being abandoned and mistreated and forgotten. We have had enough of you and Donald Trump.”
Good morning, welcome to our coverage of US politics on a day when the president of Mexico is due to visit the White House, but events are likely to be over-shadowed by the nation reaching a grim pandemic milestone. Here’s what’s up so far, and a little of what we are expecting to see today
- The Johns Hopkins University coronavirus tracker will almost certainly record the three millionth case of Covid-19 in the US today. The total is currently 2,996,098 US cases out of 11.8m worldwide
- The Trump administration has officially notified the UN that it is leaving the World Health Organisation - in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. WHO meanwhile says ‘evidence emerging’ of airborne coronavirus spread
- The US government is trying to claw back the $80m it loaned to Planned Parenthood under the coronavirus aid program, following criticism from conservative lawmakers. But Christian anti-abortion groups have also received millions in taxpayer-backed loans
- Mary Trump’s book is out in the wild despite attempts in court to muzzle it - and it claims the president’s personality has been shaped by his “high-functioning sociopath” father during childhood. Here are eight of the boldest claims
- Delaware and New Jersey voted yesterday. Because of coronavirus restrictions it wasn’t your normal primary election, and it will take days for the final result to come in, but in the key Democratic fight in New Jersey’s second congressional district, Amy Kennedy looks to have the edge so far
- It’s a busy day planned in Washington. There’s a coronavirus task force press briefing, and at 2pm Donald Trump will be greeting the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. There’s a joint declaration to be issued, and they will be delivering a joint statement at around 6:35pm
You can get in touch with me at martin.belam@theguardian.com
