| Universities scramble to protect students from deportation under new ICE policy requiring in-person classes Posted: 09 Jul 2020 09:12 AM PDT  The Trump administration's announcement that international students will have to leave the U.S. if their school does not offer in-person classes has thrown colleges into confusion.
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| Trump abruptly postpones weekend campaign rally in New Hampshire Posted: 10 Jul 2020 10:25 AM PDT  His campaign, already wary of another low turnout, blamed the decision on an impending tropical storm.
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| China rejects prospect of joining arms control talks with US Posted: 10 Jul 2020 04:04 AM PDT |
| Police identify bodies found in suitcases on Seattle beach by teens recording TikTok Posted: 10 Jul 2020 01:26 PM PDT  The bodies were found by a group of teenagers who were led to the beach by the Randonautic app.
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| Venezuelan socialist party leader Diosdado Cabello tests positive for COVID-19 Posted: 09 Jul 2020 03:49 PM PDT  Venezuelan socialist party leader Diosdado Cabello has tested positive for COVID-19, the official wrote on Twitter Thursday. Shortly after his announcement, President Nicolas Maduro said on state television Cabello would need several days of treatment and recovery, but that "he is already resting, he is fine." Cabello wrote on Twitter that he is in isolation and receiving treatment.
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| United and American Airlines are cancelling flights to Hong Kong over a requirement that crew members get tested for COVID-19 on arrival Posted: 09 Jul 2020 09:22 AM PDT  American and United Airlines were both set to resume limited flying to Hong Kong this week, but postponed it due to COVID-19 test requirements.
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| Fox News host Tucker Carlson accused of echoing white supremacist slogan on air Posted: 09 Jul 2020 02:07 PM PDT  Fox News host Tucker Carlson has been accused of echoing a 14-word white supremacist phrase during one of his on-air segments.During a segment on his Monday evening show, Mr Carlson showed side-by-side images of Representative Ilhan Omar and Senator Tammy Duckworth, both of whom are Democrats on Capitol Hill and were born overseas.
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| 'Not enough teachers to reopen': School districts expect booming demand for substitutes Posted: 10 Jul 2020 08:39 AM PDT  Schools anticipate higher than normal teacher absences in the fall because of COVID-19.
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| Judge blocks removal of more Confederate statues in Richmond Posted: 09 Jul 2020 08:14 AM PDT  A judge issued an injunction Thursday barring the city of Richmond from removing any more Confederate monuments, a process that began last week after Mayor Levar Stoney ordered the statues cleared away amid weeks of protests over police brutality and racism. Richmond Circuit Court Judge Bradley Cavedo issued the decision after a hearing in a lawsuit filed Tuesday by an unnamed plaintiff, local media outlets reported. The lawsuit asked for an emergency injunction to halt the removal of the statues and alleged that Stoney violated state law by ordering their immediate removal.
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| Trump flag angered man so he dumped trash on resident’s lawn for months, NJ cops say Posted: 09 Jul 2020 08:54 AM PDT  "Some people are very passionate about their opinions."
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| The Lincoln Project targets Senate Republicans in latest ad Posted: 09 Jul 2020 09:54 AM PDT  On Thursday, the Lincoln Project, a conservative political action committee formed in late 2019, released an ad titled "Names," which attacks several high-ranking Senate Republicans, including Mitch McConnel and Ted Cruz, for their complicity in alleged wrongdoing by the Trump administration. 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.
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| Erdogan declares Hagia Sophia a mosque after Turkish court ruling Posted: 10 Jul 2020 06:27 AM PDT  President Tayyip Erdogan declared Istanbul's Hagia Sophia a mosque on Friday with the first Muslim prayers to begin in two weeks, after a top court ruled the ancient building's conversion to a museum by modern Turkey's founding statesman was illegal. Erdogan spoke on Friday just hours after the court ruling was published, brushing aside international warnings not to change the status of the nearly 1,500-year-old monument that is revered by Christians and Muslims alike. The United States, Russia and church leaders were among those to express concern about changing the status of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, a focal point of both the Christian Byzantine and Muslim Ottoman empires and now one of the most visited monuments in Turkey.
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| De Blasio: Black Lives Matter Protests Exempt from Large-Event Ban Posted: 10 Jul 2020 04:55 AM PDT  Mayor Bill de Blasio has canceled all large events in New York City through September, but will continue to allow Black Lives Matter protests in the city, he said."This is a historic moment of change. We have to respect that but also say to people the kinds of gatherings we're used to, the parades, the fairs — we just can't have that while we're focusing on health right now," de Blasio said during a CNN appearance Thursday night.While other areas, including Los Angeles, Seattle, and Miami-Dade County, Fla., have said protests in their cities may have contributed to the spread of the virus, New York has denied experiencing any surge in cases after weeks of protests sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody. "Based on our health indicators, which measure hospital admissions, number of people in ICU and percentage of New Yorkers testing positive, we have seen no indication of an uptick in cases," Avery Cohen, de Blasio's deputy press secretary, told Fox News.Coronavirus cases in the city have been declining for weeks after spiking in mid-April. There have been 32,283 deaths in New York, more than any other state. The rule cancels street fairs, outdoor concerts, parades, and other big events, including the West Indian American Day Carnival in Brooklyn Labor Day weekend, the Dominican Day Parade in midtown Manhattan, and the San Gennaro festival in Little Italy.While religious events and press conferences will also be exempt from the ban, the city will deny all permits for street fairs, events stretching larger than one block or requiring a sound system and events in parks it believes will "unreasonably diminish public use.""As New York has begun its reopening process, accessible open spaces are more important than ever," said de Blasio in a statement. "While it pains me to call off some of the city's beloved events, our focus now must be the prioritization of city space for public use and the continuation of social distancing."
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| This aviator just became the US Navy's first Black female fighter pilot Posted: 10 Jul 2020 08:54 AM PDT  "Very proud of LTJG [Madeline] Swegle," a senior Navy official wrote. "Go forth and kick butt."
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| Outdoor Dinging Decor That's Sure to Bring Joy to Any Table Posted: 10 Jul 2020 05:00 AM PDT |
| Texas carries out its first execution during pandemic after Supreme Court gives go-ahead Posted: 09 Jul 2020 04:52 AM PDT  Texas has executed its first death row inmate since it first confirmed a case of coronavirus after a Supreme Court ruling allowed his execution to go ahead.Billy Joe Wardlow, 45, was sentenced to death in 1993 for a robbery and murder in which he and his girlfriend tried to rob 82-year-old Carl Cole of his truck using a .45-calibre gun. Mr Wardlow fired the gun in a struggle, and Cole was killed; the couple were arrested two days later.
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| No regrets: wounded Hong Kong police vow to keep enforcing law Posted: 09 Jul 2020 10:02 PM PDT  Nine months ago he was burned by corrosive liquid hurled during anti-government protests, but Hong Kong police officer Ling says he has no regrets and remains devoted to being a law enforcer. Officers like Ling have formed the spear tip of Beijing's pushback against huge and often violent pro-democracy protests in the restless finance hub. Now the police have been given expanded powers under a sweeping new national security law imposed by Beijing that aims to crush the democracy movement once and for all.
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| WHO experts to visit China to plan COVID-19 investigation Posted: 09 Jul 2020 10:38 PM PDT  Two World Health Organization experts were heading to the Chinese capital on Friday to lay the groundwork for an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. An animal health expert and an epidemiologist will meet Chinese counterparts in Beijing to work out logistics, places to visit and the participants for a WHO-led international mission, the U.N. organization said. A major issue will be to "look at whether or not it jumped from species to human, and what species it jumped from," WHO spokesperson Dr. Margaret Harris said at a briefing in Geneva.
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| Heat advisory issued as South Florida prepares to break temperature records Posted: 09 Jul 2020 05:21 PM PDT  If Thursday felt unbearably hot in South Florida, Friday has turned the broiler up a notch.
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| Gun violence disproportionately affects minorities. Data shows it's getting worse. Posted: 09 Jul 2020 06:51 AM PDT  Communities of color have endured the weight of COVID-19, the recession and social unrest. They're also bearing the brunt of a surge in gun violence.
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| The Best Smart Technology for Your Socially Distanced Summer Posted: 10 Jul 2020 10:04 AM PDT |
| CDC head sticking to school-opening guides Trump criticized Posted: 09 Jul 2020 07:42 AM PDT  Federal health officials won't revise their coronavirus guidelines for reopening schools despite criticism from President Donald Trump, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. "Our guidelines are our guidelines," Dr. Robert Redfield declared. In draft CDC documents obtained by The Associated Press, the agency says there are steps that schools can take to safely reopen but that it "cannot provide one-size-fits-all criteria for opening and closing schools or changing the way schools are run."
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| Gilead analysis shows remdesivir reduced coronavirus death risk, more studies needed Posted: 10 Jul 2020 06:02 AM PDT  Remdesivir has been at the forefront of the global battle against COVID-19 after the intravenously administered medicine helped shorten hospital recovery times, according to data in April from a separate U.S. government trial. In the latest analysis, Gilead said it analyzed data from 312 patients treated in its late-stage study and a separate real-world retrospective cohort of 818 patients with similar characteristics and disease severity. Gilead's late-stage study evaluated the safety and efficacy of five-day and 10-day dosing durations of remdesivir in hospitalized patients.
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| Twitter billionaire Jack Dorsey just announced he will be funding a universal basic income experiment that could affect up to 7 million people Posted: 09 Jul 2020 02:58 PM PDT  Jack Dorsey's fellow Silicon Valley billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg think a universal basic income could help poor Americans, too.
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| 'I would be very careful in the middle of the street': Drivers have hit protesters 66 times since May 27 Posted: 09 Jul 2020 11:56 AM PDT  There have been at least 66 incidents of cars driving into protesters from May 27 to July 6, according to Ari Weil, a terrorism researcher.
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| Supreme Court upholds American Indian treaty promises, orders Oklahoma to follow federal law Posted: 10 Jul 2020 05:23 AM PDT  Land in eastern Oklahoma that the United States promised to the Creek Nation in an 1833 treaty is still a reservation under tribal sovereignty, at least when it comes to criminal law, the Supreme Court ruled on July 9. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority, "Because Congress has not said otherwise, we hold the government to its word."To most Americans, it may seem obvious that a government should live up to its word. But the United States has regularly reneged on the promises that it made to American Indian nations in the nearly 400 treaties that it negotiated with them between 1778 and 1871. Many people feared that the Supreme Court would turn a blind eye to another treaty breach in this case, McGirt v. Oklahoma.For decades, the state of Oklahoma has prosecuted tribal citizens for committing crimes on lands in eastern Oklahoma that the United States granted to tribes in treaties. In 1997, Jimcy McGirt, a citizen of the Seminole Nation, was convicted in an Oklahoma state court of three sex crimes, including rape, that happened within the historic territory of the Creek Nation. He was sentenced to 500 years in state prison. McGirt argued that the judgment was invalid because under an 1885 federal law, only federal courts – not state courts – have the authority to try American Indians accused of committing serious crimes on Indian reservations. Who has jurisdiction?In response to McGirt, Oklahoma had argued that even if the treaty granting land to the Creek Nation created a reservation, that treaty was no longer relevant. Oklahoma claimed that the lands, which included the places where McGirt's alleged crimes happened, were no longer under tribal jurisdiction.As the case made its way through state courts and then to the Supreme Court, Oklahoma claimed that even if the land was within the Creek reservation and therefore under Creek Nation jurisdiction, the state should be allowed to continue to prosecute tribal citizens on the land because it had done so for decades.[Get facts about coronavirus and the latest research. Sign up for The Conversation's newsletter.]But the Supreme Court ruled that the terms of an 1833 treaty still apply, acknowledging that the Creek Nation had received the lands in eastern Oklahoma as partial compensation for surrendering and leaving their lands in what are now parts of Alabama, Georgia, Florida and South Carolina. The court affirmed that the Creek lands in Oklahoma land remain the tribe's reservation.Gorsuch wrote, in a 5-4 decision supported by justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, that the state's prosecutions of American Indians for crimes on the tribe's reservation violated federal law and the Creek Nation's treaty rights."Unlawful acts, performed long enough and with sufficient vigor, are never enough to amend the law," he wrote. "To hold otherwise would be to elevate the most brazen and longstanding injustices over the law, both rewarding wrong and failing those in the right."For Oklahoma, the ruling means the state cannot continue to prosecute tribal citizens on tribal lands – which includes about half of Oklahoma's territory because the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Seminole nations have similar treaties with the United States granting them land in Oklahoma, too. What comes next?The state had argued in court that the ruling would cause all sorts of problems with law enforcement and the economy in Oklahoma. But within hours of the ruling, state officials and leaders of the five American Indian nations had released a joint statement assuring the public that they are negotiating agreements that will fix any problems that might arise.The statement declared that all the authorities "are committed to ensuring that Jimcy McGirt … and all other offenders face justice for the crimes for which they are accused." Under the Supreme Court decision, McGirt faces retrial by a federal court.Beyond Oklahoma, the decision's effects will vary by tribe and state. States from Florida to Michigan have sought to curtail tribal sovereignty, and this decision clearly affirmed tribal sovereignty and treaty rights. It also emphasized the limited powers that states have over American Indian tribes under the U.S. Constitution. States may now think twice before ignoring treaty promises or challenging tribal jurisdiction. They may decide it's better to negotiate than to fight in court.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * Why Native Americans struggle to protect their sacred places * Native American tribes' pandemic response is hamstrung by many inequitiesKirsten Carlson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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| Netherlands takes Russia to European Court of Human Rights over MH17 downing in Ukraine Posted: 10 Jul 2020 07:03 AM PDT  The Dutch government will sue Russia in the European Court of Human Rights for its role in the crash of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, shot down over eastern Ukraine in 2014. "Achieving justice for 298 victims of the downing of Flight MH17 is and will remain the government's highest priority," Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok said in a statement. "By taking this step today – bringing a case before the ECHR and thus supporting the applications of the next of kin as much as we can – we are moving closer to this goal." Russian officials had no immediate reaction to the announcement. Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was shot down by a missile on July 17, 2014, over rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine, in what came to be one of the most tragic episodes in the bloody separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine. Russia has stubbornly denied any role in supporting the rebels with troops or weapons. The Dutch-led joint investigative team has insisted that it was the Russian military that deployed a Buk missile launcher to eastern Ukraine that shot down the plane, a claim that the Kremlin has denied. The case is separate to the ongoing trial that opened in the Netherlands in March after Ukraine's Leonid Kharchenko and Russian separatist commanders, Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinskiy and Oleg Pulatov, were charged with destroying the aircraft and murdering all people on board. None of the men, who are in Russia or separatist-held eastern Ukraine, are attending the trial, and only Mr Pulatov has appointed counsel to defend him in court. Lawsuits by one country against another are extremely rare for the European Court of Human Rights, which typically deals with claims lodged by individuals against their country, and Friday's announcement highlights the Netherlands' frustration with Russia which has refused to cooperate with the Dutch investigation.
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| Kayleigh McEnany tells CNN reporter Trump will ‘always put children’s’ safety first’ Posted: 09 Jul 2020 01:33 PM PDT  White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany weighs in on the CDC's guidelines for reopening schools amid the coronavirus pandemic at a briefing.
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| Comet streaking past Earth, providing spectacular show Posted: 10 Jul 2020 07:38 AM PDT  A newly discovered comet is streaking past Earth, providing a stunning nighttime show after buzzing the sun and expanding its tail. Comet Neowise — the brightest comet visible from the Northern Hemisphere in a quarter-century — swept within Mercury's orbit a week ago. NASA's Neowise infrared space telescope discovered the comet in March.
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| Jared Kushner said the US would be 'really rocking again' by July. 7 states are shutting back down, and new COVID-19 cases have set records 6 times in July's first 10 days. Posted: 10 Jul 2020 01:59 PM PDT  In Kushner's confident Fox & Friends appearance back in April, he also proclaimed the US was "on the other side of the medical aspect" of the virus.
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| Hundreds gather for funeral of Palestinian shot by Israeli troops Posted: 10 Jul 2020 05:29 AM PDT  Hundreds of people gathered in the occupied West Bank on Friday for the funeral of a Palestinian man shot by Israeli soldiers a day earlier. Israel's army said troops opened fire after the Palestinian and another man started throwing fire bombs at a guard post near the town of Nablus. Palestinian officials dismissed the report and said the man had been walking with friends when he was shot dead.
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| 1986 cold case on ‘Dateline’ now has arrest in teen’s disappearance, Indiana cops say Posted: 09 Jul 2020 11:33 AM PDT  The missing teen mystery was featured by "Dateline" in March.
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| Australia offers safe haven to Hong Kongers, sparking China fury Posted: 09 Jul 2020 04:42 AM PDT  Australia offered pathways to permanent residency for thousands of people from Hong Kong on Thursday in response to China's crackdown on dissent, drawing a furious reply from Beijing. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said his government was suspending its extradition agreement with the city and, in addition to extending the visas of 10,000 Hong Kongers already in the country, threw open the door to thousands more wanting to start a new life Down Under. Morrison said the decisions were taken in response to China's imposition last week of a tough new security law in Hong Kong, which he said "constitutes a fundamental change of circumstances" for the semi-autonomous territory.
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| 'Opioid overdoses are skyrocketing': as Covid-19 sweeps across US an old epidemic returns Posted: 09 Jul 2020 03:00 AM PDT  The pandemic is creating the social conditions – no jobs, isolation, despair – that helped enable the opioid crisis to emerge in the first place. Now it's backIn West Virginia, they are bracing for the second wave.The epidemic that hit the Appalachian state harder than any other in the US finally looked to be in retreat. Now it's advancing again. Not coronavirus but opioid overdoses, with one scourge driving a resurgence of the other.Covid-19 has claimed 93 lives in West Virginia over the past three months. That is only a fraction of those killed by drug overdoses, which caused nearly 1,000 deaths in the state in 2018 alone, mostly from opioids but also methamphetamine (also known as meth).That year was better than the one before as the Appalachian state appeared to turn the tide on an epidemic that has ravaged the region for two decades, destroying lives, tearing apart families and dragging down local economies.Now coronavirus looks to be undoing the advances made against a drug epidemic that has claimed close to 600,000 lives in the US over the past two decades. Worse, it is also laying the ground for a long-term resurgence of addiction by exacerbating many of the conditions, including unemployment, low incomes and isolation, that contributed to the rise of the opioid epidemic and "deaths of despair"."The number of opioid overdoses is skyrocketing and I don't think it will be easily turned back," said Dr Mike Brumage, former director of the West Virginia office of drug control policy."Once the tsunami of Covid-19 finally recedes, we're going to be left with the social conditions that enabled the opioid crisis to emerge in the first place, and those are not going to go away."To Brumage and others, coronavirus has also shown what can happen when the government takes a public health emergency seriously, unlike the opioid epidemic, which was largely ignored even as the death toll climbed into the hundreds of thousands.The American Medical Association said it was "greatly concerned" at reported increases in opioid overdoses in more than 30 states although it will be months before hard data is available.> Clearly, what we have lost with the pandemic is a loss of connection> > Dr Mike BrumagePublic health officials from Kentucky to Florida, Texas and Colorado have recorded surges in opioid deaths as the economic and social anxieties created by the Covid-19 pandemic prove fertile ground for addiction. In addition, Brumage said significant numbers of people have fallen out of treatment programmes as support networks have been yanked away by social distancing orders."I'm a firm adherent to the idea that the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, the opposite of addiction is connection. Clearly, what we have lost with the pandemic is a loss of connection," he said."Many of the people who were using the programme either didn't have broadband or they didn't have cellphone service, especially those who were homeless. They just fell out of the programme," he said.The resurgence was not unforeseen. In March, as Covid-19 escalated, Donald Trump warned about the human toll beyond lives claimed by the virus. "You're going to have tremendous suicides, but you know what you're going to have more than anything else? Drug addiction. You will see drugs being used like nobody has ever used them before. And people are going to be dying all over the place from drug addiction," he said.Brumage and others who spoke to the Guardian were at pains to say they believed the scale of the government's response to Covid-19 is necessary. But they saw the mobilisation of financial resources and political will to cope with the virus in stark contrast to the response of successive administrations to the opioid epidemic.Emily Walden lost her son to an opioid overdose and now heads Fed Up!, a group campaigning to reduce the US's exceptionally high opioid prescribing levels."Congress immediately acted with coronavirus to help those that lost their jobs, to make sure that people were taken care of and it was addressed properly," she said. "Look at the difference with the opioid epidemic, which has largely been ignored by our federal government for 20 years."While the US government has thrown $6tn at coronavirus, the Trump administration dedicated just $6bn to directly dealing with opioid addiction over his first two years in office even though about the same number of people died of drug overdoses in that period as have now been lost to Covid-19.Brumage said federal health institutions have shifted their focus to coronavirus, including freezing a $1bn research project to find less addictive pain treatments.> You can think of Covid-19 as a hurricane whereas the opioid crisis is more like global warming. It's happening, it's slow, it's dangerous> > Dr Mike Brumage"It's robbed the oxygen out of the room and made it the sole focus of what's happening," said Brumage. "There's also a fatigue about the opioid crisis. You can think of Covid-19 as a hurricane whereas the opioid crisis is more like global warming. It's happening, it's slow, it's dangerous, but it's not happening at the same speed and scale as the coronavirus is having right now." Brumage attributes the difference in response in part to attitudes toward drug addiction."The difference between getting Covid and dying of an overdose is stigma around drug use. This has been ingrained across the United States – that people using drugs are somehow seen as morally deficient and so it becomes easier then to other and alienate those people," he said.Walden does not accept that explanation. Like many whose families have been devastated by opioids, she sees a personal and public health catastrophe perpetuated by the financial and political power of the pharmaceutical industry to drive the US's exceptionally high opioid prescribing rates which were a major factor in driving the epidemic."This comes down to lobbyists and money. People say it's stigma and it's not. There is stigma but it's about profits and greed," she said.Dr Raeford Brown, a former chair of the Food and Drug Administration's opioid advisory committee, is a longstanding critic of drug industry influence over opioid medical policy and the government's response to the epidemic. He sees a parallel with coronavirus with US states lifting strong social distancing orders too early under corporate pressure."The United States is not good at doing public health," he said. "It failed the test with opioids and it failed the test with viral pandemics. But coronavirus and pandemics, and the things like the opioid crisis, are much more likely to get us than the Russians or the Chinese are."
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| Iranian official issues denial after another mysterious blast reported in Tehran Posted: 10 Jul 2020 06:59 AM PDT  Iranian state media reported a blast in western Tehran early Friday, the latest in a string of mysterious incidents to shake the country in recent weeks. However, a senior official in that part of the city later denied there had been an explosion. State broadcaster IRIB said power was cut in several western suburbs near where online reports said an explosion occurred. It gave no further information about the cause of the blast or whether there were casualties. The governor of Qod city, Leila Vaseghi, told semi-official Fars news agency there had been no explosion but acknowledged a power cut that lasted about five minutes. It was not immediately clear if the reported incident had taken place in Qod or in a different area of western Tehran, and residents contacted by Reuters in other parts of the city said they had heard no explosion. There are reportedly several military facilities in the area which could have been the target of sabotage. A series of fires and blasts have been reported near Iranian military, nuclear and industrial facilities in recent weeks. Iranian officials have said many were caused by industrial accidents. A bright flash lit up the night sky over Tehran early on June 26, apparently coming from near the near Parchin military site. Fars news agency later said the fire was caused by "an industrial gas tank explosion" near a facility belonging to the defence ministry. A defence ministry spokesman told state TV that the fire was quickly controlled and there were no casualties. But after a similar unexplained fire at the Natanz nuclear plant in central Isfahan province on July 2, officials were forced to admit there had been significant damage to the country's primary uranium enrichment facility. A spokesman for the Supreme National Security Council of Iran said the "cause of the accident" at the centrifuge assembly plant had been identified, saying more information would be released at a later date "due to security considerations". The New York Times reported a Middle Eastern intelligence official and an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander saying the Natanz incident was caused by an explosive. The head of Israeli intelligence, Yossi Cohen, was later accused of leaking information that Mossad planted a bomb that caused the damage. On Friday, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Seyed Abbas Mousavi said Iran would retaliate if it were shown an international sabotage operation had caused the explosion in Natanz. "It is still too early to make any judgment on the main cause of the blast [in Natanz], and relevant security bodies are probing into every detail of the incident," Fars reported him as saying.
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| Environmental Injustice Is Another Form of 'Assault on Black Bodies,' Says Sen. Cory Booker Posted: 09 Jul 2020 11:29 AM PDT  'The biggest determining factor of whether you live around toxicity is the color of your skin'
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| The Best Beach Towels That Aren’t Totally Boring Posted: 10 Jul 2020 07:58 AM PDT |
| Storm clouds hang over Trump's attempted campaign reboot Posted: 09 Jul 2020 10:30 PM PDT  Friday was supposed to be the day President Donald Trump's campaign reboot itself got a reboot. Amid uncertainty over whether he can still draw big and enthusiastic crowds to his signature rallies in the coronavirus era, Trump postponed a planned Saturday rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, citing a tropical storm expected to hit a swath of the Eastern United States. "With Tropical Storm Fay heading towards the Great State of New Hampshire this weekend, we are forced to reschedule our Portsmouth, New Hampshire Rally at the Portsmouth International Airport at Pease," Trump tweeted.
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| U.S. Treasury chief supports more direct payments in next coronavirus aid bill Posted: 09 Jul 2020 07:49 AM PDT  U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Thursday that he supports another round of direct payments to individuals as part of the next coronavirus legislation and is working to get it passed by Congress by the end of July. Mnuchin also told CNBC in an interview that not all of the airlines that signed Treasury loan agreements will need to access those loans, as they may be able to meet their financing needs in private financial markets. Despite United Airlines' decision on Wednesday to notify 36,000 employees of potential furloughs, Mnuchin said he believed most airlines wanted to keep as many staff as possible, and healthy airlines were needed to aid the U.S. economic recovery.
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| What Ghislaine Maxwell's arrest means for Epstein case Posted: 08 Jul 2020 09:06 PM PDT  Insight from Cameron Lindsay, prison security expert, and criminal defense attorney Mark Eiglarsh.
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| Want to know why we need the police? The battle in Seattle is the reason | Opinion Posted: 10 Jul 2020 12:46 PM PDT  Let's get rid of cops, defund them, at least make them less active, deplete their ranks and agree they suffer from systemic racism bred into their modes of behavior, always acting as if to be Black is to be guilty.
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| UC Berkeley reopening in doubt after 47 coronavirus cases tied to fraternity parties Posted: 09 Jul 2020 12:12 PM PDT  Cases make it 'harder to imagine bringing our campus community back' as planned, university saysPlans for the fall semester at the University of California, Berkeley, are in question after 47 new Covid-19 cases tied to fraternity parties emerged in the past week. University officials warn the outbreak could jeopardize the ability to move forward with in-person classes in the months ahead."We have seen the number of University Health Services positive cases increase from a running total of 23 since the start of the pandemic, to 47 new cases in just one week," university officials wrote in a letter."At the rate we are seeing increases in cases, it's becoming harder to imagine bringing our campus community back in the way we are envisioning," the letter adds.Officials said the infections were related to social events where students failed to physically distance, wear face masks, limit event size and gather outside.In recent weeks, as new coronavirus cases reached record highs across California, the governor, Gavin Newsom, has linked outbreaks to gatherings of friends and families, as well as to the "young and invincible" who haven't taken safety precautions.The state on Wednesday recorded its deadliest day of the pandemic as fatalities topped 150, surpassing the previous single-day record of 122 deaths, set on 19 May. Across the state, hospitalizations, admissions to ICUs and the rate of people testing positive have all seen a jump.University officials said keeping Covid-19 cases low would allow them to move forward with plans for the fall semester, which include a combination of online lectures and small in-person classes.Officials say they are exploring ways to isolate students living on campus in small "bubbles" of 10 to 12 students that could "increase social interaction while keeping overall exposure dramatically reduced". It would also restrict class sizes and eliminate "high-touch" areas to the extent possible.The university reminded the campus community to take basic safety measures such as wearing face masks, keeping 6ft apart and monitoring temperature daily."The fall semester will look and be very different. Everyone – students, faculty and staff – will be wearing a mask unless they are completely alone in their room or office. There will be distancing measures in every conceivable area across campus," said the university.
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