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Title: Justin Trudeau says Canada handled COVID-19 better than US Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau praised his country’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak — while rebuking the US for its own response to the pandemic. Speaking during a news briefing Wednesday, Trudeau said, “We were able to control the virus better than many of our allies, particularly including our neighbor.” With a population one-tenth the size of the US, Canada has recorded 8,711 deaths and 106,167 cases of the novel virus as of Wednesday. Meanwhile, the US has recorded more than 3 million cases and over 131,000 deaths. Trudeau went on to say that the outbreak was “stabilizing in Canada, because Canadians did their part and followed public health instructions. “But we still have to be very careful, things can change quickly … we still have some hot spots in some parts of the country, including in long-term care facilities and agricultural work settings, so as we continue to gradually reopen the economy, we have to remain vigilant.” The US-Canada border has been closed for non-essential travel since March, and officials are in discussions on whether to extend the ban before it expires on July 21. Trudeau’s latest comments come days after he publicly turned down a White House invitation to join President Trump and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in celebration of their new North American trade deal. Citing scheduling concerns, a spokesman for Trudeau said Monday that the Canadian leader would be skipping Trump’s gathering so he could instead take part in cabinet meetings and “the long-planned sitting of Parliament” in his country. “The entry-into-force of the new NAFTA is good for Canada, the United States, and Mexico,” the rep said in a statement. “It will help ensure that North America emerges stronger from the COVID-19 pandemic.” “We wish the United States and Mexico well at Wednesday’s meeting.” While Trudeau remained in Ottawa, López Obrador and Trump met at the White House to mark the start of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which went into effect July 1. During the summit, López Obrador, a veteran of leftist politics who is often compared to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), lavished praise on Trump in the White House Rose Garden. “Thank you, President Trump, for being increasingly respectful to our Mexican fellow man,” he said through a translator. “To you, President Trump, I want to thank you for your understanding and the help you’ve given us in issues related to trade, commerce, oil, as well as your personal support for the acquisition of medical equipment that we needed urgently to treat our patients of COVID-19.” López Obrador had called for Trudeau to participate in the meeting after the Canadian prime minister signaled last week that he would decline the invitation. Trudeau cited concerns over the threats of new aluminum and steel tariffs from the US as one reason to not attend. “We’re obviously concerned about the proposed issue of tariffs on aluminum and steel that the Americans have floated recently,” he said at the time. Trudeau was referring to the possible reintroduction of a 10 percent tariff lifted by Trump last year as part of USMCA negotiations. With Post wires

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Title: Newly released audio sheds light on Breonna Taylor shooting Newly released audio recordings show that cops involved in the police shooting death of Breonna Taylor realized they screwed up and that investigators later soft-pedaled their interview with the cop who led the deadly raid. The recordings reveal that a plainclothes officer went up to Taylor’s boyfriend after the fatal March 13 shooting and told him there had been a “misunderstanding,” NBC News reported Thursday. “Why’d he say to me that there was a misunderstanding?” Kenneth Walker asked when he was interviewed by police just hours after the botched raid. “I don’t know,” Sgt. Amanda Seelye, a member of the Louisville department’s Public Integrity Unit, answered. “That’s some new information for us as well.” “I’m not an idiot,” Walker replied. “They figured out something. They did something wrong.” By contrast, Sgt. Jon Mattingly, who led the raid on Taylor’s St. Anthony Gardens apartment, wasn’t interviewed until 12 days later, and had a lawyer present in what an expert called a “leading” interview, NBC said. The sergeant, who was wounded, said he backed out of the apartment as the shooting continued. “That’s kind of like what I was getting to because of your positioning, you know, initially when you’re shot,” interviewer Sgt. Jason Vance told Mattingly. “And then rightfully so, you’re returning fire.” “Mm-hmmm,” Mattingly replied. “But you know you just said you made a conscious decision, you know, ‘I’m injured, I need to move, so they can protect themselves and me as well,'” Vance said. “And then — I don’t want to put words in your mouth.” “No, that’s it,” Mattingly said. Mattingly’s interview lasted 40 minutes, Walker’s 98 minutes. Taylor, a 26-year-old EMT, was sleeping in the apartment when police executed a “no-knock” warrant there at 12:40 a.m. Cops said they believed Taylor was stashing drugs in the apartment, although no drugs were ever found. Police contend that cops knocked and announced themselves. They said the apartment was deemed “a soft target” because there were no animals or children present and no threats expected. Walker said he heard the knock but got no answer when he asked who it was. Fearing it was a push-in robbery, he said, he grabbed his licensed handgun and fired a shot when cops burst in, wounding Mattingly in the leg. The officers returned fire, getting off at least 16 rounds and hitting Taylor with eight bullets, killing her. Walker, 27, who was not wounded, was later indicted on charges of attempted murder of a police officer. Prosecutors dismissed the charges after Taylor’s death sparked outrage in the community and became a rallying cry for racial justice. Only one of the cops involved in the raid — Sgt. Brett Hankinson, who fired 10 of the shots inside Taylor’s apartment — has been fired for “wantonly and blindly” shooting into the apartment. None of the officers has been charged. The FBI is also probing the incident.

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Title: Man confesses secrets to wife in COVID-19-triggered manic episode The coronavirus may have triggered a bizarre manic episode in which a patient envisioned his life “like a TV show,” touched nurses “inappropriately” and confessed to his wife that he’d had sex with men, according to a case study. The 41-year-old man had been in London’s St. Thomas Hospital with COVID-19 for 10 days when he became delirious, uninhibited and “highly aroused” — and was placed on antipsychotic medication, experts said in the BMJ Case Reports medical journal. Doctors believe COVID-19-related issues may have triggered a dormant case of bipolar disorder in the man — one of several brain and nervous system problems that have emerged in recent studies on the virus, the report states. “I began to think that I was part of a TV show, in which I was sent back from the future to save the NHS, and I was curious to see how this would end,” said the unnamed patient, who suffered from headaches and coughing, according to the journal. During the psychotic episode, the man first awoke in the middle of the night feeling like his brain was “racing” and was struck by “grandiose ideas.” He tried to baptize fellow patients, inappropriately “touched members of staff” and confessed to his wife he’d “mostly” had sex with men before their marriage, according to doctors who described his mood as “elevated.” “He also confessed to numerous hitherto undisclosed homosexual encounters and other sexual behaviors described as uncharacteristic by his wife,” the report notes. “He obsessively wrote down every personal interaction and bodily sensation. He said he found this experience ‘liberating.'” The patient was eventually detained under the country’s Mental Health Act because he became so out of control. “This is, to the best of our knowledge, the first report of an acute episode of mania or psychosis as a result of SARS-CoV-2 infection,” Dr. Jamie Mawhinney wrote in the journal, which doesn’t note the date the incident happened. On Wednesday, doctors citing a new study warned that coronavirus-related brain damage could lead to a wave of inflammatory diseases, psychosis and delirium.

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Title: DOJ says Roger Stone's prison sentence shouldn't be delayed The Justice Department won’t stand in the way of Roger Stone, a longtime political ally of President Trump, reporting to federal prison next week, according to a report. Stone, convicted of lying to Congress and obstructing the Russia investigation, appealed to a federal appeals court to delay his prison term until September because of the coronavirus pandemic. In a filing, the Justice Department said the July 14 date set by the federal judge is “a reasonable exercise of that court’s discretion based on the totality of the factual and legal circumstances,” CNN reported on Thursday. Stone’s legal team asked the US Court of Appeals in Washington, DC, on Monday to delay his reporting to the Georgia prison. They argued that presiding federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson “largely failed to address the evidence that Stone provided that demonstrates that he is at considerable risk from serious health consequences, including death, if his surrender date is not extended until September 3.” Berman Jackson denied the request because there are no coronavirus cases at the facility, but she granted a two-week delay. Stone, 67, is appealing his November conviction and 40-month prison sentence. The Justice Department had been criticized for giving Stone preferential treatment. Aaron Zelinsky, a prosecutor on former special counsel Robert Mueller’s team and who handled the Stone case, testified to the House last month that the Justice Department treated Stone differently because of his relationship with the president. With Post wires

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Title: Prince Andrew seen for first time since Ghislaine Maxwell's arrest Prince Andrew was spotted in England this week for the first time since Ghislaine Maxwell’s arrest, according to reports. The royal was photographed driving off in a black Range Rover from his estate in the town of Windsor, where he’s been hiding out since his former pal was arrested on sex trafficking charges in New Hampshire last week. A security officer was seated next to the Duke of York as they drove off from one of the home’s rear exits, The Sun newspaper reported. He hasn’t spoken publicly since Maxwell’s arrest and has rarely been seen since he gave a disastrous interview with the BBC about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. After the interview, he was forced to step back from his royal duties “for the foreseeable future.” “It has become clear to me over the last few days that the circumstances relating to my former association with Jeffrey Epstein has become a major disruption to my family’s work and the valuable work going on in many organizations and charities that I am proud to support,” Andrew said in the statement, which was released in November. In a six-count indictment handed down last week, federal prosecutors accused Maxwell of trafficking underage girls for Epstein to sexually abuse in the US and London. It’s unclear if Maxwell will cooperate with prosecutors, but at least one lawyer who represents several of her accusers has suggested Prince Andrew could be implicated if she does. Attorney Gloria Allred said at a press conference Monday that Andrew should speak with federal prosecutors in New York before Maxwell does — and warned that the “clock is ticking” for him to do so. “My point is this, she knows quite a bit about the powerful men who were close to Jeffrey Epstein,” she said. “Ms. Maxwell is the one who introduced Prince Andrew to Jeffrey Epstein.”

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Title: Mitch McConnell: Republican National Convention may not happen Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell broke with the White House on Thursday and said the coronavirus pandemic may scuttle plans for the Republican National Convention. “We will have to wait and see how things look in late August to determine whether or not we can safely convene that many people,” McConnell said in his home state of Kentucky. The Republican leader did not directly answer whether he’s willing to skip the Jacksonville, Fla., gathering along with a handful of other GOP senators. “I think the convention is a challenging situation and a number of my colleagues have announced that they are not going to attend,” he noted. McConnell, 78, is a polio survivor and early in the pandemic stoically carried on his duties on Capitol Hill, wading through tightly packed groups of colleagues and reporters. But as new infections surge, he’s been a leading Republican proponent of mask-wearing. President Trump and White House officials want to hold a traditional nominating event in August. Trump ordered the venue moved to Florida after Democratic officials in Charlotte, North Carolina, indicated they would object to original plans. Democrats have all but scrapped their Milwaukee, Wisconsin, convention and have sniped at Republicans for potentially threatening public health. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Wednesday, “We’re still moving forward with Jacksonville. It’ll be a safe event. It will be a good event. And it will be up to the RNC as to how those details are hashed out.” Vice President Mike Pence said last week during a visit to Florida that there would be “very sophisticated” plans to prevent attendees from spreading COVID-19. Republican Sens. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Susan Collins of Maine, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitt Romney of Utah say they don’t plan to attend the convention.

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Title: First woman joins the Army's elite Green Berets A female Army National Guard soldier made US military history Thursday by becoming the first woman to join the elite Green Berets. The unidentified warrior broke through one of the military’s last remaining gender barriers by being among the 400 graduates to endure the grueling, 53-week training program, according to Military.com. “From here, you will go forward and join the storied formation of the Green Berets, where you will do what you are trained to do: challenge assumptions, break down barriers, smash through stereotypes,” Lt. Gen. Fran Beaudette, commander of US Army Special Operations Command, told the graduates during a ceremony at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. “Thankfully, after today, our Green Beret men and women will forever stand in the hearts of free people everywhere.” Women have been eligible to join military combat units since 2015, but the Green Berets are among the last to admit a female fighter to their ranks, the outlet reported. In 1980, Army Capt. Kate Wilder became the first woman to complete the Green Berets’ six-phase Qualification Course but she initially wasn’t allowed to graduate. Although she eventually received her certificate, she never served as a Green Beret and the Army blocked other women from entering the program. The Greet Berets, formally known as Army Special Forces soldiers, derive their nickname from their distinctive headgear. The caps also bear a crest with the motto “De Oppresso Liber,” Latin for “To Free the Oppressed.”

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Title: Judge orders Christopher Steele's firm to pay damages to bankers A London judge on Wednesday ordered ex-British spy Christopher Steele’s intelligence firm to pay damages to two Russian bankers, ruling that Steele had falsely reported in his 2016 dossier on Donald Trump that the pair had arranged payoffs to Vladimir Putin during the 1990s. Justice Mark Warby ruled that Steele “failed to take reasonable steps” to verify the allegation, which was false, the Wall Street Journal reported. Warby ordered Steele’s company, Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd., to pay $23,000 to each of the two bankers. In the dossier, much of which was subsequently discredited, Steele alleged that the billionaires Petr Aven and Mikhail Fridman, both on the supervisory board of the Russian financial conglomerate Alfa Group, had facilitated delivery of “large amounts of illicit cash” to Putin when he was a deputy mayor in St. Petersburg. Steele wrote that the purported payments were part of a long business relationship between Putin and the bankers, who continued to do “significant favors,” the Journal reported. Steele, who was first hired by a conservative group to do research on Trump but was later paid by Hillary Clinton’s campaign, has said he compiled the dossier and shared it with only a small group of people, and never planned for it to be published, which BuzzFeed subsequently did. The dossier formed the basis for the “Russia collusion” investigation. Fridman hailed the ruling. “Ever since these odious allegations were first made public in January 2017, my partners and I have been resolute and unwavering in our determination to prove that they are untrue,” he said in a statement. “Through this case, we have finally succeeded in doing so.” In a statement, Orbis said it would “ensure that our company’s data handling procedures incorporate” the judge’s findings. President Trump has repeatedly called the dossier “fake” and “a hoax” and has denied collusion with Russia by his campaign.

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Title: Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon found dead The mayor of South Korea’s capital city, Seoul, who vanished amid sexual harassment allegations, has been found dead — hours after his daughter reported that he had left a verbal message that sounded like a will, according to a report. Police found Park Won-soon dead after they launched a massive search for him in the hills stretching across northern Seoul where his cellphone signal was last detected, the Yonhap news agency reported. Park, who was long seen as a potential presidential candidate, reportedly faced allegations of sexual misconduct. His daughter said he had left his home after saying what sounded like “last words,” according to Reuters. She didn’t specify the contents of the message, according to an officer at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency who was responsible for the search party. Government official Kim Ji-hyeong said Park did not come to work on Thursday for unspecified reasons and had canceled all of his meetings for the day. The Seoul-based SBS TV network reported that one of the mayor’s secretaries had lodged a complaint with police a day earlier over alleged sexual harassment such as unwanted physical contact that began in 2017. The report, which didn’t cite any source, said the woman told investigators that an unspecified number of other female staffers at City Hall had suffered similar sexual harassment by Park. MBC TV carried a similar report. Police and the mayor’s office said they couldn’t confirm the reports. Police spokesman Lee Byeong-seok said Park was last identified by a security camera at 10:53 a.m. at the entrance to the hills, more than six hours before his daughter reported him missing. Park — a longtime civic activist and human rights lawyer who had been the mayor since 2011 — was seen as a potential presidential hopeful for the liberals during the 2022 presidential elections. He had established himself as a fierce opponent of former conservative President Park Geun-hye and backed the millions of people who flooded city streets in late 2016 and 2017, calling for her ouster amid a corruption scandal. Park Geun-hye, who was removed from office in 2017, is serving a long prison term on bribery and other charges. With Post wires

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Title: Voice of America won't extend visas for foreign journalists Dozens of foreign journalists working in the US for Voice of America will not have their visas extended once they expire, NPR reported Thursday, citing a trio of sources. The report said Michael Pack, President Trump’s newly appointed CEO of the Agency for Global Media, which oversees international broadcasting, indicated he would not approve the visa extensions. Pack on Wednesday also ordered the firing of ex-Radio Free Asia chief Bay Fang, whom Pack had previously demoted. The foreign journalists are valued for their language skills, which are essential to the VOA’s mission as an international broadcaster that presents America’s take on the news to the world. One VOA journalist told NPR that some of the foreign journalists forced to return home would likely face repercussions from their own countries’ governments that are hostile to the US. Trump nominated Pack, an ally and documentary filmmaker, two years ago to be CEO of the international broadcasting agency, but he was only confirmed by the Senate last month. Pack quickly canned the directors of all the agency’s divisions: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; Radio Free Asia; Office of Cuba Broadcasting, which oversees Radio and Television Martí; Middle East Broadcasting Networks, which runs Alhurra and Radio Sawa; and the Open Technology Fund, which promotes internet access around the world. The director and deputy director of Voice of America resigned shortly before Pack took office, saying he should be able to appoint his own team. Trump and his administration have been highly critical of Voice of America. The White House claimed in April that VOA had “amplified Beijing’s propaganda” by running an Associated Press article about COVID-19 policies in China, where the virus originated.

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Title: Pharmacist allegedly sexually assaulted woman from eHarmony A Colorado pharmacist allegedly lured an Indiana woman he met on dating site eHarmony to his home with the promise of providing treatment for an ailment — but instead plied her with drugs to sedate her during sexual assaults, according to reports. Brent Stein, 46, who owns Mountain Key Pharmacy in Florissant, was already on probation after a 2019 conviction for a domestic violence incident when he met the woman on the site on June 8, The Gazette reported. Stein told the woman he wanted to “court her,” but she told him she was not interested in a sexual relationship at the time and decided to fly to Colorado Springs two days later, according to Fox 21. He promised the woman he could cure her of a condition similar to one that had claimed the life of his late wife, according to the news outlet. “During the first night of the victim’s stay (in Stein’s home), the victim engaged in consensual kissing with the suspect … but told the suspect she did not want to have sex with him,” according to the arrest affidavit. The woman told investigators that Stein gave her an array of medications — including injecting a liquid into her nose from a large syringe — before sexually assaulting her while she was incapacitated. She said he put tablets into her mouth that made her feel very lethargic and unable to move her arms and legs, Fox 21 reported. At first, the woman forgave him as she considered the “forced sex” to be the result of him being “lonely and horny,” according to the affidavit. “Wish you were okay, so sad. I’m sorry I didn’t know. Wish you can forgive. Then you will heal. Sorry,” the suspect wrote the woman in a text message after the alleged assault. “Due to the severe side effects endured, the victim went to UCHealth emergency room at Pikes Peak Regional Hospital,” the affidavit said. “The victim had difficulty recalling the amount of times (she) was sexually assaulted while in the incapacitated state but estimates it to be at least seven times between June 6 and 10.” The woman also reported that Stein took her phone without permission and sent pictures of her in her underwear to his phone — and that when confronted, he said he wanted the images to pleasure himself. Police have reported additional victims who have come forward to report alleged unwanted sexual conduct by Stein, who was charged June 21 with sexual assault and released on $100,000 bond.

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Title: Illinois toddler killed in pit bull attack during July 4th party A 17-month-old Illinois girl died after being attacked by a dog in a playpen at a Fourth of July party, police said. Marley Wilander, of Aurora, died early Sunday at a hospital in Joliet, where she and her parents had attended a friend’s party hours earlier, police told the Chicago Sun-Times. The tot’s parents put her in a playpen in an upstairs room at their friend’s house before two pit bull mixes somehow escaped the basement. The homeowner heard a commotion upstairs and found one of the dogs biting the girl, police said. The homeowner, who was not identified, managed to get the animal off the little girl, but she had already been covered with “bite marks throughout her body,” police said in a statement. She was rushed to a hospital in Joliet, where she later died. A preliminary autopsy indicated she died from the attack, the newspaper reports. No charges had been filed in the incident as of Monday. The dog, meanwhile, was reportedly turned over to Joliet Township Animal Control. An Aurora resident who was watching fireworks nearby said the party had been raging until nearly midnight and added that “a lot of dogs” frequently run free in the neighborhood. “Inside someone’s house it’s their responsibility to take care of their dogs,” neighbor Carl Bell told WGN. A call seeking additional comment from Joliet police was not immediately returned Thursday.

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Title: Sanders hails Biden for largely moderate 'unity' proposals Sen. Bernie Sanders’ most progressive ambitions will largely be bypassed in the next Democratic Party platform, but he stands by the largely moderate proposals regardless. The Biden-Sanders Unity Task Forces, which was created to combine the platforms of Sanders and Joe Biden, the two Democratic primary front-runners, unveiled its list of policy recommendations for the party Wednesday. Those recommendations do not include “Medicare-for-all,” arguably Sanders’ most widely known policy proposal, tuition-free public college or the Green New Deal. The Democratic socialist and Vermont independent acknowledged the differences between himself and Biden as they related to the platform in a statement Wednesday, saying, “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 task forces 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 throughout our country,” Sanders added. Progressives were able to score some wins in the 110-page document, which featured hundreds of policy recommendations across six policy areas. The task forces agreed to back eliminating carbon emissions for power plants by 2035, implementing new use-of-force guidelines for police, banning for-profit charter schools, blocking the federal government from approving contracts to companies that pay below the $15 minimum wage as well as a myriad of immigration policies. The immigration-focused task force will center on reversing the Trump administration policy that denies protected entry to asylum seekers. “We will reverse Trump Administration policies that prevent victims of gang and domestic violence, as well as LGBTQ+ people who are unsafe in their home countries, from being eligible to apply for asylum. Democrats will end Trump Administration policies that deny protected entry to asylum seekers, put them at great risk, and destabilize our neighbors and the broader region,” the document reads. “And we will end prosecution of asylum seekers at the border and policies that force them to apply from ‘safe third countries,’ which are far from safe.” In a blow to progressives, however, the platform does not call for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as many in that wing of the party had wanted. Though Sanders did not get all of his progressive goals met with the task force, he felt confident about the compromise platform that was settled on. Speaking to MSNBC Wednesday night, Sanders said, “These folks, needless to say, represented the progressive movement have a different perspective on things than the Biden people, but there was serious discussion. And I think a real honest effort to come up with a compromise. And I think the compromise that they came up with, if implemented will make Biden the most progressive president since FDR.” Biden has long wanted to avoid a repeat of the 2016 Democratic primary, where the party was left completely fractured after the tense battle between Hillary Clinton and Sanders. Immediately after defeating Sanders for the party’s nomination, Biden began making inroads with Sanders’ coalition of progressive voters as part of a larger effort to unite the party to defeat Trump. In the two weeks leading up to the Democratic socialist’s announcement that he was withdrawing from the race, Biden and his allies were in quiet contact with Sanders’ team, trying to find common ground on policy in an effort to unite the party, according to the New York Times. Conversations were conducted over “intense” conference calls, the Times reported, and topics included health care and climate change, among other policy matters. Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ top political adviser, and Faiz Shakir, his campaign manager, negotiated on the candidate’s behalf. Anita Dunn and Ron Klain, two longtime Biden surrogates, represented the Democratic front-runner.

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Title: WHO warns COVID-19 pandemic is 'getting worse' The director-general of the World Health Organization warned this week that the coronavirus pandemic is accelerating and the virus has not reached its peak worldwide. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the statement at a weekly webinar Tuesday as he announced the UN was forming a panel to evaluate its response and the response of countries to the deadly pandemic. “The virus is not under control. It is getting worse … more than 544,000 lives have been lost. The pandemic is still accelerating. The total number of cases has doubled in the last six weeks,” Ghebreyesus said. Ghebreyesus also urged nations to work together to solve the crisis. “The greatest threat we face now is not the virus itself,” he said, according to the Guardian. “Rather, it’s the lack of leadership and solidarity at the global and national level. We cannot defeat this pandemic as a divided world. The virus thrives on division but is thwarted when we unite,” he said. “Together is the solution, unless we want to give the advantage the enemy, to the virus that has taken the world hostage — and this has to stop,” he added. The UN review body will be headed by former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, according to the report. More than half a million people have died from the coronavirus across the globe, with more than 132,000 killed by the virus in the United States.

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Title: Thai Cabinet approves bills allowing same-sex partnerships BANGKOK — Thailand’s Cabinet has approved two draft bills that would give same-sex unions legal status similar to that of heterosexual marriages. The draft Civil Partnership Act and amendments of the Civil and Commercial Code will be sent to Parliament soon for approval, deputy government spokeswoman Ratchada Thanadirek said after Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting. The Civil Partnership Act would allow couples who were born with the same sex to register their partnership if they are both at least 17 years old and at least one is a Thai citizen. Although their union is not defined as a marriage, it grants many legal rights that are the same as those held by married heterosexual couples in matters such as adoption of stepchildren and inheritance. However, partners would not be entitled to all the same financial benefits from the state. Such unions could be ended by death, voluntary separation or court order. The Civil and Commercial Code amendments specify further regulations for civil unions, such as barring involvement in more then one partnership at a time and declaring that the right to alimony for a partner in a disbanded union is lost when they form a new one. Kittinun Daramadhaj, president of Rainbow Sky of Thailand, who helped write the bill, said the draft approved Wednesday was an improvement on earlier versions, but that some members of the LGBTQ community believe it does not go far enough to ensure equal rights.

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Title: Missouri sleepaway camp closes after 82 kids, staff get coronavirus A Missouri sleepaway camp has shut down after more than 80 kids and staffers became infected with the coronavirus, health officials said. Kamp Kanakuk decided to end its K-2 program in Lampe last week after the first few dozen cases were detected, according to the Stone County Health Department. As of Monday, at least 82 campers and staff have tested positive for the virus, officials said. The infected campers and employees have since returned to at least 10 states, as well as several Missouri counties, officials said. “Stone County Health Department will be working closely with Kanakuk Kamps to identify exposed individuals and quarantine those individuals, as necessary,” the agency said. The Christian summer camp program, which hosted kids ages 13 to 18, had promised a summer of “over-the-top fun and activities, deep friendships, biblical discipleship, and focused sports training” on its website. “Now more than ever, kids need summer camp!” the site said. Kamp Kanakuk operates six camps in Taney and Stone County, though it’s unclear whether any of the other programs were suspended in the wake of the outbreak.

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Title: Georgia teen charged with murdering 66-year-old grandmother A Georgia teen has been charged with murdering her grandmother, authorities said. Alisha Kianna Pompey, 17, was arrested early Monday after Fayette County deputies found the teen’s grandmother, 66-year-old Dorothy Pompey, dead in the family’s residence at the Four Seasons Mobile Home Park, The Citizen reports. Deputies were sent to the location for a medical call, but investigators determined domestic violence factored in the elderly woman’s death, Sheriff Barry Babb told the newspaper. The teen was taken into custody later that morning without incident. She lived at the home with her grandmother and other relatives, Babb said. Pompey was later charged as an adult with felony murder and aggravated assault in her grandmother’s death, the sheriff said, adding that no additional information was being released as of Tuesday. A message seeking additional comment from the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office was not immediately returned Thursday. Pompey, of Fayetteville, remains held without bond at the Fayette County Jail, records show. It’s unclear if she’s hired an attorney.

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Title: BLM mural near Chicago defaced, changed to read 'All Lives Matter' A Black Lives Matter mural was defaced and painted over to read “All Lives Matter” in a village near Chicago this week, according to officials and a new report. The mural, painted two weeks ago in Oak Park, Illinois, was vandalized overnight Tuesday into Wednesday, village officials said. Portions of the mural were covered up so that it read “All Lives Matter,” according to the Chicago Tribune. The graffiti was largely cleaned off by 10 a.m. Wednesday, but local officials and artists who created the mural said they will discuss whether additional work is needed to fully restore it, the outlet reported. The mural was the idea of Cullen Benson, a graduate of the local Oak Park and River Forest High School. The “Black Lives Matter” message is nearly 100 feet wide, according to the paper. Work began on June 24 and the project was completed in less than two days, Benson told the outlet. The mural nods to the colors of the LGBTQ+ pride flag, as well as navy blue and orange, the high school’s colors, according to the report. Village officials called the mural “a testament to community acknowledgment of the Black Lives Matter movement that has focused public attention on the inequities and systemic racism that have such a negative impact on people of color.” They say Oak Park police have gathered evidence they hope will help identify the vandals. The incident comes days after a California duo defaced a Black Lives Matter mural outside a courthouse in Martinez. Nichole Anderson, 42, and David Nelson, 53, were charged with vandalism, violation of civil rights and possession of tools to commit vandalism of graffiti.

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Title: Kentucky man who plotted school shooting gets 10 years A Kentucky man who bought an AR-15 rifle to use in a planned shooting at his former high school has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, federal prosecutors said. Dylan Jarrell, 22, of Lawrenceburg, was sentenced Wednesday for crimes connected to his planned attack at Shelby County High School, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Kentucky. Prosecutors said Jarrell in May 2018 used an anonymous Reddit account to indicate he planned to shoot up a school, prompting FBI agents to visit his home to question him. Jarrell, who lied to investigators about his “internet activities” when interviewed, then bought an AR-15 rifle, a bump stock, high-capacity magazine, ammo and body armor over the next few months – items he intended to use in a planned attack at the high school, federal prosecutors said. Jarrell, a former student at the school, had posted all-cap messages on Reddit referencing high-profile school shooters, including Columbine gunmen Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, as well as Virginia Tech murderer Seung-Hui Cho, NBC News reports. “RIP Dylan and Eric,” Jarrell wrote in the posts, according to a plea agreement. “Im about to do it better than Cho.”   Jarrell was arrested in October 2018 after a New Jersey woman alerted police that he sent her racially motivated harassing messages on Facebook, NBC News reports. Jarrell admitted to planning the attack and to buying the AR-15 as part of his plot, federal prosecutors said. He pleaded guilty in November to several counts, including possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence and lying to FBI officials. “Halted by the work of dedicated law enforcement professionals who confronted and stopped him, Dylan Jarrell was intent on committing horrific acts of violence on innocent people,” US Attorney Robert Duncan said. “The investigation conducted by [Kentucky State Police] and FBI personnel almost certainly saved lives.” Jarrell’s attorney, meanwhile, wrote in court documents that his client suffered from mental illness and characterized his plans as “weak at best,” NBC News reports.

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Title: Trump lashes out at Supreme Court after ruling on his tax returns President Trump on Thursday lashed out in a series of fiery tweets at the Supreme Court’s ruling that he has to turn over financial documents and his tax returns to Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr. — claiming he was being treated differently than other presidents. “Courts in the past have given ‘broad deference.’ BUT NOT ME!” he tweeted about the 7-2 ruling, in which even his own appointees, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, sided with the majority. “We have a totally corrupt previous Administration, including a President and Vice President who spied on my campaign, AND GOT CAIGHT [sic] …and nothing happens to them. This crime was taking place even before my election, everyone knows it, and yet all are frozen stiff with fear,” he wrote. “Won all against the Federal Government and the Democrats send everything to politically corrupt New York, which is falling apart with everyone leaving, to give it a second, third and fourth try. Now the Supreme Court gives a delay ruling that they would never have given for another President,” he continued. “This is about PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT. We catch the other side SPYING on my campaign, the biggest political crime and scandal in U.S. history, and NOTHING HAPPENS. But despite this, I have done more than any President in history in first 3 1/2 years!” Minutes later, the president continued, “The Supreme Court sends case back to Lower Court, arguments to continue. This is all a political prosecution. I won the Mueller Witch Hunt, and others, and now I have to keep fighting in a politically corrupt New York. Not fair to this Presidency or Administration!” Vance also tweeted his reaction. “This is a tremendous victory for our nation’s system of justice and its founding principle that no one – not even a president – is above the law,” the prosecutor wrote. “The President is neither absolutely immune from state criminal subpoenas seeking his private papers nor entitled to a heightened standard of need,” the verdict read. The historic ruling would allow prosecutors to scrutinize the business dealings the president has fought to keep private since he entered public office. Despite the president’s reaction, Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow said he was “pleased” with the rulings and planned to continue fighting the issue in lower courts. “We are pleased that in the decisions issued today, the Supreme Court has temporarily blocked both Congress and New York prosecutors from obtaining the President’s financial records. We will now proceed to raise additional Constitutional and legal issues in the lower courts,” Sekulow said. Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden retweeted a short video of himself from October 2019. “As I was saying,” Biden wrote to introduce the video, in which he looks at the camera and says: “Mr. President, you want to talk about corruption? I’ve released 21 years of my tax returns … release yours or shut up.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also weighed in on the High Court’s rulings, the second of which sent a fight over congressional subpoenas for the records back to lower courts because of “significant separation of powers concerns.” “A careful reading of the Supreme Court rulings related to the President’s financial records is not good news for President Trump,” the California Democrat maintained. “The Court has reaffirmed the Congress’ authority to conduct oversight on behalf of the American people, as it asks for further information from the Congress. Congress’s constitutional responsibility to uncover the truth continues, specifically related to the President’s Russia connection that he is hiding,” she continued. “The Congress will continue to conduct oversight For The People, upholding the separation of powers that is the genius of our Constitution. We will continue to press our case in the lower courts.”

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Title: CDC: COVID-19 guidelines for reopening schools will not be revised The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the agency will not revise guidelines for reopening schools this fall, after President Trump said they are too expensive and burdensome, but will work with local school districts. “Our guidelines are our guidelines, but we are going to provide additional reference documents to aid basically communities that are trying to open K-through-12s,” CDC Director Robert Redfield said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Thursday. “It’s not a revision of the guidelines; it’s just to provide additional information to help schools be able to use the guidance we put forward.” He was asked whether the regulations were too strict, as suggested by the president in a tweet. “Right now, we’re continuing to work with the local jurisdictions to how they want to take the portfolio of guidance that we’ve given to make them practical for their schools to reopen,” he said. He called the guidelines “intentionally non-prescriptive” and said the CDC would work with local school districts to come up with a plan. “It’s a critical public health initiative right now to get these schools reopened and to do it safely,” Redfield said. The president on Wednesday threatened to pull federal funding if states don’t open their schools and said he disagreed with Redfield’s “tough & very expensive guidelines for opening schools.” His tweets emphasized his administration’s full-court press on getting schools open this fall. Vice President Mike Pence said students have to return to the classroom. “What we heard yesterday from education officials and what we heard from the American Academy of Pediatrics, it is absolutely essential that we get our kids back in the classroom for in-person learning,” Pence said during a coronavirus task force briefing at the Department of Education, referring to a forum in the East Room on Tuesday. “We cannot let our kids fall behind academically. But it is important that the American people remember that for children that have mental health issues, for special-needs children, for nutrition, for children in communities facing persistent poverty, that school is the place where they receive all of those services,” the veep continued. “This is not simply about making sure our kids are learning and advancing academically, but for their mental health, for their well-being, or their physical health, have to get our kids back to school.” Pence also said the CDC would be issuing new guidelines next week. The CDC’s guidelines call for schools to stagger schedules, spread out desks, ensure students stay six feet apart and that students have meals in classrooms instead of gathering in cafeterias.

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Title: Marquette threatened to rescind admission over pro-Trump video An incoming freshman at Marquette University said the Milwaukee school threatened to cancel her admission after she posted a TikTok video expressing support for President Trump — and that she has been threatened for it, according to a report. Samantha Pfefferle shared the video — titled “When the libs find their way to your page” — in which she dances along with captions such as “When people see that I support Trump,” “Then try to hate on me” and “And think I’ll change my views,” The College Fix reported. The video, which also features a Trump 2020 flag and a sign that reads “Marquette 2024,” contains a song by rapper 6ix9ine’s “GOOBA,” with lyrics such as “He’s mad, she’s mad, big sad, haha, don’t care, stay mad,” according to the student news site. Pfefferle said some people have threatened her life for the video, which has been watched about 600,000 times. “I hope you get shot,” one user told her, according to The College Fix. “I’d pray for you but you’re not worth it,” another person said. Pfefferle told the news site that she “was extremely disappointed by the incendiary comments. The response from my peers has been repulsive.” She said Brian Troyer, the dean of undergraduate admissions, told her that her acceptance was far from sure. “[He] had the heart to tell me I wasn’t a student,” Pfefferle told the outlet, adding that she had already paid for housing and has a complete class schedule. “If that doesn’t make me a student, what does?” said Pfefferle, who later confirmed that the school finally informed her Monday that it would not revoke her admission. She earlier said some school administrators had asked her questions meant to judge her morals. “They also asked me hypothetical questions regarding Dreamers,” she said, referring to young undocumented immigrants who arrived as children and are protected from deportation under an Obama-era program that Trump wants to end. “How would I respond if a Dreamer who lived down the hall from me came up to me and told me she didn’t feel safe or comfortable with my views and me being on campus,” Pfefferle told the Fix. “They also asked me if they thought there was anything I could do to improve my image on campus. They proceeded to ask if I was comfortable with the reputation I have established for myself. The assistant dean asked if I put any thought into the response I would be getting from my videos.” The Jesuit school said in a statement that its “admissions decisions are made based on academic achievements and student involvement, not political views,” adding that the report that the school “might rescind the admission of incoming freshman Samantha Pfefferle is false.” “Marquette has not rescinded her admissions offer,” the statement says. “Concerns about this new student that were brought to the university’s attention were not based on political affiliation but on alleged use of discriminatory language. In this case, there were also concerns for the incoming student’s safety, which were investigated by the Marquette University Police Department and discussed with the incoming student,” it added.

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Title: Joe Biden vows to reverse Trump decision on WHO withdrawal Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden says he will reverse President Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from the World Health Organization. “Americans are safer when America is engaged in strengthening global health. On my first day as President, I will rejoin the @WHO and restore our leadership on the world stage,” the former vice president tweeted Tuesday evening. Biden’s pledge to rejoin the embattled organization came shortly after the Trump administration confirmed its move to break ties with the global health body as the coronavirus pandemic continues to plague much of the world. The official withdrawal, should it go through, will be effective July 6, 2021. The relationship between the US and the WHO has soured since last year, when the pandemic began killing by the hundreds of thousands and sent global financial markets into tailspins. In mid-April, Trump announced a cut to US funding for the WHO until a review was completed into its relationship with China and the early days of the outbreak. One month later, he agreed to resume partial payments to the embattled organization, but said the US would only match what China currently pays in contributions. Later in May, he revealed a letter he sent to the director-general threatening to permanently cease US funding to the agency if it did not commit to “substantive improvements” within the next 30 days. “It is my duty, as President of the United States, to inform you that, if the World Health Organization does not commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days, I will make my temporary freeze of United States funding to the World Health Organization permanent and reconsider our membership in the organization,” the commander-in-chief wrote. “I cannot allow American taxpayer dollars to continue to finance an organization that, in its present state, is so clearly not serving America’s interests,” the letter continued. At the end of that month, the relationship took yet another turn for the worse when the commander-in-chief said the agency had declined to make the requested reforms. Trump announced he was suspending the US relationship with the organization — blasting the global body for covering up the coronavirus crisis with China. At a press conference in the White House Rose Garden, Trump accused the United Nations organization of being under the control of the Communist nation and said it failed to provide transparency over the origins of the COVID-19 outbreak. “China has total control over the World Health Organization,” Trump said, noting that the US contributed $450 million to the WHO each year compared to China’s $40 million. “We have detailed reforms that it must make and engaged with them directly, but they have refused to act,” he continued. “Because they have failed to make the requested and greatly needed reforms, we will today be terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization and redirecting those funds to other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs.” Chinese President Xi Jinping pressured the director of the World Health Organization in January to hold off on issuing a global warning about the coronavirus outbreak, according to a report in a German newspaper in May. The Jan. 21 conversation between Xi and WHO leader Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was reported in Der Spiegel, which cited intelligence from Germany’s federal intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND). The report said Xi urged the WHO chief to “delay a global warning” about the pandemic and hold back information on human-to-human transmission of the virus. The BND estimated that China’s action to conceal information resulted in a loss of four to six weeks in the fight against COVID-19. The WHO denied these allegations.

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Title: Holocaust survivor invites DeSean Jackson to tour Auschwitz A 94-year-old Holocaust survivor is inviting embattled Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson to visit Nazi death camps after Jackson shared anti-Semitic posts on Instagram. In an open letter to Jackson, Holocaust survivor Edward Mosberg denounced the wideout’s posts — including one with a quote attributed to Adolf Hitler — as “heartbreaking and so deeply wrong.” Mosberg, who survived several Nazi concentration camps, including Mauthausen in Austria, said his late wife was a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau, where roughly 1.1 million people were killed between 1940 and 1945. “The Allied Forces, including American troops, carrying with them American flags fought valiantly and suffered unspeakable losses to stop this evil, the same man you quote!” Mosberg wrote. “I would invite you to join me at the sites of these German Nazi death camps, to understand what evil truly is, and why sharing quotes of the man behind this evil is so offensive to us all.” Mosberg is the honorary chairman of a group called From The Depths, which works with Holocaust survivors worldwide and Jewish communities in Eastern Europe, according to its website. “After the terrors of the Holocaust, I was blessed to have the opportunity to come to the United States of America,” Mosberg’s letter continued. “I arrived as [an] immigrant without a penny to my name and worked hard to build a future for my wife and family.” The group would host Jackson at Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland, Mosberg said. “We await your response,” Mosberg wrote. Jackson, 33, had not responded to Mosberg’s letter as of early Thursday, but he will tour the Horwitz-Wasserman Holocaust Memorial Plaza in Philadelphia, CNN reports. The site’s chairman, David Adelman, tweeted Tuesday that Jackson will be hosted for an education session and tour of the plaza, saying he’s “confident we can turn this into a positive together.” The three-time Pro Bowler apologized Tuesday for his Instagram posts, saying they were “insensitive” and “ill-informed” following widespread outrage. Jackson, who cited a quote widely attributed to Hitler as saying “Jews will blackmail America,” also took heat for another Instagram post supporting Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Island leader known for fiery anti-Semitic rhetoric. Currently signed to a three-year deal worth nearly $28 million, Jackson can become a free agent in 2022. A message seeking comment from his reps was not immediately returned Thursday.

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Title: SCOTUS rules NY prosecutors can access Trump's financial records WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled a New York grand jury can subpoena President Trump’s tax returns and financial records, but blocked a similar request from congressional investigators, sending both decisions back to lower courts and keeping the records under wraps for the foreseeable future. In two 7-2 verdicts, the justices said the president was not immune from subpoenas and criminal investigations but ruled an investigation from Democrat-led House committees was too broad, and that it claimed limitless powers to pry into Trump’s financial dealings that the committees do not have. “The President is neither absolutely immune from state criminal subpoenas seeking his private papers nor entitled to a heightened standard of need,” the first verdict from Chief Justice John Roberts read. The historic ruling will allow Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. to have a grand jury subpoena eight years of the president’s tax returns that he has fought to keep private since he entered public office. However, such a subpoena will have to be ruled on by the US District Court in DC and, even if it is issued, the records likely would not be made public before the November presidential election, providing something of a victory to Trump even in defeat. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito were the dissenting votes in each 7-2 ruling. The Supreme Court also dismissed subpoenas from Congress seeking the financial records and tax returns of the president and his family, arguing it was an overreach and threatened the separation of powers. That case has also been sent back to the US District Court. “The House’s approach would leave essentially no limits on the congressional power to subpoena the President’s personal records,” Roberts wrote, arguing that the subpoenas “lacked a legitimate legislative process.” “These separation of powers concerns are unmistakably implicated by the subpoenas here, which represent not a run-of-the-mill legislative effort but rather a clash between rival branches of government over records of intense political interest for all involved,” he continued. The president railed against the decisions Thursday morning, tweeting that New York was “politically corrupt” and that the decision was “not fair” to his presidency or administration. Both of Trump’s Supreme Court nominees, Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, voted in favor of allowing the New York grand jury to seek the president’s tax returns. In his dissenting opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas said Congress was acting outside the bounds of which it was supposed to function by relentlessly pursuing the president. “I would hold that Congress has no power to issue a legislative subpoena for private, nonofficial documents — whether they belong to the President or not,” he wrote. “If the Committees wish to investigate alleged wrongdoing by the President and obtain documents from him, the Constitution provides Congress with a special mechanism for doing so: impeachment,” he added. Multiple Democrat-led House committees issued subpoenas to the president’s financial institutions in mid-2019 as part of a probe into allegations from Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen that the president inflated his wealth on tax returns in order to secure large loans. Cohen, who turned over years of financial statements to the committees, also said Trump undervalued his assets to reduce his real estate taxes — prompting Congress to issue subpoenas of his financial records dating back to 2009. Vance’s office last September also subpoenaed Trump’s longtime accounting company Mazars USA for eight years of his financial records and tax returns as part of an investigation into whether he paid hush money before the 2016 election to several women with whom he allegedly had affairs. The payments would be a potential violation of campaign finance laws. In his dissenting opinion on the Vance case, Justice Samuel Alito argued “a sitting President may not be prosecuted by a local district attorney, adding, “The Presidency deserves greater protection.” “The Court’s decision threatens to impair the functioning of the Presidency and provides no real protection against the use of the subpoena power by the Nation’s 2,300+ local prosecutors.” Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany praised the judgments as a “big win” for the president but said Trump was unhappy with the fact that the court did not grant him immunity from criminal investigations. “He takes issue with the point that the majority made on absolute immunity, but nevertheless, I would underscore the victory here as Cy Vance the attorney was not given what he wanted, which was access to the records,” she said. Trump’s personal attorney Jay Sekulow, who argued the case, welcomed the decision Thursday and said they would continue fighting the matter in the lower courts. “We are pleased that in the decision issued today the Supreme Court has temporarily blocked both Congress and New York prosecutors from obtaining the president’s financial records,” he wrote in a statement. “We will now proceed to raise additional constitutional and legal issues in the lower courts,” he added. The president has denied all of the allegations and his lawyers argued that the subpoenas amounted to nothing more than a politically motivated mission to weaken Trump’s standing with voters before the November election. The case centered on whether third parties such as Mazars USA and the president’s financial institutions, Capital One and Deutsche Bank, could be compelled by Congress and prosecutors to hand over their famous client’s records. Vance said he was also pleased with the decision, which affirmed the president is not above the law. “This is a tremendous victory for our nation’s system of justice and its founding principle that no one — not even a president — is above the law,” Vance said in a statement. “Our investigation, which was delayed for almost a year by this lawsuit, will resume, guided as always by the grand jury’s solemn obligation to follow the law and the facts, wherever they may lead.” Trump spent the morning tweeting about the case, writing “PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT!” and “PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT!” while also repeating claims that his predecessor, President Barack Obama, spied on his campaign. The president’s attorneys fought the cases at every turn, suing both the Manhattan DA’s Office and Trump’s banks in an attempt to block the legal challenges that threatened to make his long-secret financial dealings public. When appeals to a Manhattan federal judge and the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit both failed, Trump asked the Supreme Court to hear his case. Trump’s finances have been scrutinized for years, with Democrats accusing him of profiting off the presidency in his dealings with foreign governments and through encouraging diplomats and Secret Service agents to stay in his hotels in the US and around the world.

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Title: UN: World could hit 1.5-degree warming threshold by 2024 GENEVA — The world could see annual global temperatures pass a key threshold for the first time in the coming five years, the UN weather agency said Thursday. The World Meteorological Organization said forecasts suggest there’s a 20 percent chance that global temperatures will be 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the pre-industrial average in at least one year between 2020 and 2024. The 1.5 C mark is the level countries agreed to cap global warming at in the 2015 Paris accord. While a new annual high might be followed by several years with lower average temperatures, breaking that threshold would be seen as further evidence that international efforts to curb climate change aren’t working. “It shows how close we’re getting to what the Paris Agreement is trying to prevent,” said Maxx Dilley, director of climate services at the World Meteorological Organization. Dilley said it’s not impossible that countries will manage to achieve the target set in Paris, of keeping global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), ideally no more than 1.5 C, by the end of the century. “But any delay just diminishes the window within which there will still be time to reverse these trends and to bring the temperature back down into those limits,” he told The Associated Press. Scientists say average temperatures around the world are already at least 1 C higher now than from 1850-1900 because of man-made greenhouse emissions. The Geneva-based WMO said there’s a 70 percent chance that the 1.5-degree mark will be exceeded in a single month between 2020 and 2024. The five-year period is expected to see annual average temperatures that are 0.91 C to 1.59 C higher than pre-industrial averages, it said. The forecast is contained in an annual climate outlook based on several long-term computer models compiled under the leadership of the United Kingdom’s Met Office. Climate models have proven accurate in the past because they are based on well-understood physical equations about the effect of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, said Anders Levermann, a scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research near Berlin who was not involved in the report. “We can make more accurate predictions about the climate than about the weather,” he said. “The physics behind it is solid as a rock.” Leverman said that while hitting the 1.5-degree threshold was “a screaming warning signal” it should not become a distraction from efforts to reduce man-made greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050. WMO noted that the models used for the forecast don’t consider the impact that the coronavirus pandemic might have on reducing emissions of planet-warming gases such as carbon dioxide. But experts say any pandemic-related dip in emissions is likely to be short-lived and could actually hurt efforts to end the use of fossil fuels. “The impact of the coronavirus is a partial shutdown of the economy worldwide,” said Levermann. ”But changing the way we do things can only be done with a healthy economy.” Dilley, the WMO official, said record temperatures such as those currently seen in the Arctic are the effect of emissions pumped into the atmosphere decades ago, so attempts to alter the future course of the climate need to happen soon. “This is not something that can be stopped on a dime,” he said. “It’s like an ocean liner that takes a long, long time to turn.” “This is the message that people in their daily lives and how they vote and every other way they should be concerned about,” he added.

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Title: Ex-US Attorney Geoffrey Berman to testify before House panel Geoffrey Berman, the ousted US attorney for the Southern District of New York who was leading probes into President Trump’s allies, is scheduled to appear in a closed-door meeting Thursday before the House Judiciary Committee. Last month, Berman was engaged in an extraordinary standoff with Attorney General William Barr, who sought to have him leave office — and agreed to step down only after being assured his office’s investigations of the president’s inner circle would continue. Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) called Berman’s ouster “part of a clear and dangerous pattern” of behavior by Barr. The panel’s Democratic majority is pursuing a probe of the AG, who they claim operates more like the president’s personal attorney than the nation’s top law enforcement official. Barr also is expected to testify before the committee later this month. At the SDNY, Berman oversaw several ongoing probes of the president’s associates, including some who featured prominently in Trump’s House impeachment inquiry. The office is also looking into the business dealings of Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani. It also has prosecuted the president’s former fixer Michael Cohen, who was imprisoned for lying to Congress and campaign finance crimes. Berman — a Republican lawyer and Trump donor — had worked from 1987 to 1990 for the independent counsel who investigated the Reagan administration in the Iran-Contra affair. He was tapped by the White House in 2018 as the US attorney for SDNY. The effort to boot Berman sparked an unusual clash between the Justice Department and the SDNY. Barr announced late on a Friday that Berman was stepping down — but the US attorney later issued his own statement saying he had “no intention of resigning” and showed up for work the next morning. Barr then announced Berman’s firing and Trump told reporters it was “all up to the attorney general.” “I wasn’t involved,” he said. Earlier on that Friday, Barr met with Berman in New York and offered him a new job leading the Justice Department’s civil division in Washington — one of the department’s top roles — and floated the possibility of him replacing Jay Clayton as SEC chairman. Clayton’s name had been announced as Berman’s replacement in the US Attorney’s Office. Berman had not been presidentially nominated as US attorney and was instead serving in a temporary capacity as a judicial appointee since early 2018. With Post wires

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Title: Church volunteers post 'no trespassing' sign as black woman sits on lawn Volunteers at a Los Angeles church put up a “No Trespassing” sign when a black woman sat on its front lawn, video shows. Alex Marshall-Brown, an actress who appeared as a stuntwoman in Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight,” posted a 5-minute clip Tuesday of her experience outside St. Paul’s First Lutheran Church in North Hollywood, where a volunteer told her she was unwelcome. “I did notice that, why am I not welcome?” Marshall-Brown asks. “Because this is private property,” the man replies. “The church is not welcoming me?” “No, it’s not,” the church volunteer replies. “We have a lot of problems with people here from the park vandalizing and we don’t want anybody on the private property. If you want to stay on the sidewalk, that’s OK. The mayor says you can have all the sidewalk you want, but you can’t be on the grass — that’s our property.” The man then acknowledges Marshall-Brown hasn’t vandalized anything as he posts a “No Trespassing” sign on a tree, video shows. “You know, we used to be real nice about it,” the man says. “Not anymore, sorry. When people aren’t nice, we’re not nice.” “How have I been unkind to you, sir?” Marshall-Brown asks. “You haven’t,” the man admits. “But we have to treat everybody the same — all lives matter.” “I said nothing about any lives, sir,” Marshall-Brown replies. The church volunteer continues to urge Marshall-Brown to move along –saying he was willing to call cops over the standoff — until another woman walks up, video shows. The woman claims Marshall-Brown posed a threat to children by sitting on the grass. “You apparently have your own agenda,” the woman tells Marshall-Brown. In a statement released Wednesday, church officials admitted Marshall-Brown “posed no risk or threat” to the property and said the incident was mishandled. The volunteers involved in the exchange have also stepped down from their roles. “The disrespect demonstrated by the individuals does not represent the attitude of St. Paul’s First,” said Santiago Botero, acting principal at St. Paul’s school. “I am personally offended by what I saw in the video and would like to apologize on behalf of St. Paul’s First.” As Christians, Botero said, church volunteers had a duty to show “love and mercy” to others. “Unfortunately, this did not happen yesterday,” the statement continued. A message seeking comment from Marshall-Brown was not immediately returned early Thursday. Marshall-Brown told CBS Los Angeles she met Wednesday with church leaders who were “very contrite” about what they saw on the video. The church now intends to introduce racial bias training, she told the station.

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Title: Pompeo: US to fulfill financial pledges to WHO before withdrawal Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledged that the US will fulfill its financial obligation to the World Health Organization before it formally exits the United Nations agency next year, according to a report. “We will work with Congress with respect to the appropriated funds,” Pompeo said Wednesday, according to Fox News. “We’ll get it right.” “But the president has made very clear we are not going to underwrite an organization that has historically been incompetent and not performed its fundamental function,” he added. The Trump administration said Tuesday that it had notified the UN that the US is withdrawing from the WHO effective July 6, 2021. President Trump has blasted the global health agency for siding with China to downplay the extent of the novel coronavirus outbreak after the first reports of the disease surfaced in Wuhan, China, in late December. Chinese President Xi Jinping pressured the director of the World Health Organization in January to hold off on issuing a global warning about the coronavirus outbreak, according to a report in a German newspaper in May. The Jan. 21 conversation between Jinping and WHO leader Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was reported in Der Spiegel, which cited intelligence from Germany’s federal intelligence service, known as the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND). The report said Xi urged the WHO chief to “delay a global warning” about the pandemic and hold back information on the human-to-human transmission of the virus. The BND estimated that China’s action to conceal information resulted in a loss of four to six weeks in the fight against COVID-19. The WHO denied these allegations.

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Title: Widow of President Trump's friend shoots down SAT allegation Ex-tennis star Pam Shriver pushed back against the explosive allegation in a tell-all memoir by President Trump’s niece that he had hired pal Joe Shapiro — the former pro’s late husband — to take the SATs for him. Mary Trump wrote in “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man” that Trump enlisted the help of Shapiro to take the exam so he could get the scores needed to transfer from Fordham to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. “To hedge his bets he enlisted Joe Shapiro, a smart kid with a reputation for being a good test taker to take his SATs for him,” Mary Trump wrote in her upcoming book, ABC News reported. “That was much easier to pull on in the days before photo IDs and computerized records. Donald, who never lacked for funds, paid his buddy well,” she wrote without providing proof or attribution. Shapiro, an attorney and a former executive at the Walt Disney Co., died in 1999 of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, according to ABC News. Shriver, now an ESPN tennis analyst, said that if the book refers to her late husband, who was Trump’s friend, she is confident the allegation is false. “My late husband Joe Shapiro passed away 21 years ago. He was a man of great integrity, honesty; he was a hard worker. He was literally the smartest person I ever met,” Shriver said in a video posted on Twitter. She said the two men did not meet until after Trump had transferred to the prestigious Wharton for his junior year, when Shapiro was an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania. “He went to University of Pennsylvania, member of the class of 1968. It was while he was at University of Pennsylvania where he met Donald Trump. They became friends; they loved the sport of golf. They shared the same hometown of New York City; they shared the same campus. They stayed in a little bit of touch through the years.” Shriver added: “But obviously Joe’s not here to defend himself and say what happened, but I just want to recollect what he told me about where he met Mr. Trump. And I want to thank all of Joe’s close friends and his sister Beth for our talks in the past 24 hours about what an upstanding, outstanding man Joe Shapiro was.” Shriver said Shapiro and Trump remained friends over the years — and that they visited him a few times at Trump Tower, ABC News reported. “When you put somebody’s name in print in a book, you want to make sure the facts around it are correct, especially if they are not living because it’s not like Joe is here and he would have known how to deal with this,” she said, according to the news outlet. Shriver added that she had already refuted the allegation when a reporter asked her about it years ago. “It feels unfair,” she said, according to ABC News. Shriver said she has seen Trump at tennis events over the years and that he always said that “Joe Shapiro was the smartest man I ever met.” On Tuesday, the White House forcefully denied the allegation by Mary Trump, the daughter of the president’s late elder brother, Fred Trump Jr. “The absurd SAT allegation is completely false,” it said in a statement. Publisher Simon & Schuster, which said the book would hit the shelves on July 14, two weeks ahead of schedule, said in a statement Monday that it stands by its contents.

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Title: Supreme Court to rule on release of Donald Trump's tax returns The US Supreme Court is expected to decide Thursday whether President Trump’s tax returns and financial records will be turned over to congressional investigators and the Manhattan district attorney. The court announced Wednesday that it would issue the remaining decisions from its 2019-2020 term and comes as Trump’s two court appointees — Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch — are seated on the bench. House panels are seeking records from Deutsche Bank, CapitalOne and the accounting firm Mazars USA as part of their oversight into whether Trump has financial conflicts of interest and probes into his businesses. Deutsche Bank was one of the few banks that lent money to Trump after his bankruptcies in the 1990s. Documents are also sought for the Trump Organization and the president’s children. New York DA Cy Vance wants eight years of the president’s tax returns released as part of his investigation into whether Trump made hush-money payments in the days before the 2016 election to two women — including Stormy Daniels — who alleged they had affairs with him. The payments could violate campaign financing laws. Trump, who has refused to release his tax returns, has denied their allegations. The House’s interest was sparked by testimony from Michael Cohen, the president’s former personal lawyer, who told Congress in 2019 that Trump inflated his wealth to get loans and save on paying taxes. Cohen is serving time for lying to Congress in the Russia investigation. The Trump administration has argued that efforts to obtain his taxes and financial records are “harassment” by political partisans and maintained that the president cannot be investigated while in office. Lower courts in Washington, DC, and New York have rejected that argument, saying the subpoenas were sent to third parties and seek information about Trump’s dealings as a private citizen. Trump’s legal team took the matter to the country’s highest court. The case has huge ramifications on the separation of the executive and legislative branches and the ability of Congress to fulfill its oversight duties. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously against President Richard Nixon in 1974 and President Bill Clinton in 1997 when they tried to block the release of documents and testimony. With Post wires

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Title: Can Kanye West actually make it on the presidential ballot? Kanye West will face considerable hurdles getting on the ballot should he decide to go through with his presidential bid. With just four months until the November general election, the music superstar has already missed filing deadlines for independent candidates in Indiana, Texas, Maine, New Mexico and North Carolina. Additionally, West faces fast-approaching deadlines in Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Utah and Wyoming. According to an analysis by Forbes, these states leave the sneaker mogul ineligible for as many as 187 of the 538 electoral votes up for grabs in the general election. Candidates need 270 to win the presidency. Speaking to Billboard, an FEC spokesperson said West did not appear to have filed any paperwork to declare his candidacy or get on the ballot. “Candidates who’ve won the presidency tend to have gotten into the race much sooner than this. If you’re running for any federal office, four months out seems pretty late based on my experience,” the spokesperson said. Additionally, West will need to quickly gather tens of thousands of signatures from nearly every state across the country in order to gain “ballot access.” Currently, West has not built a campaign infrastructure and has hired no staff. His two notable supporters are superstar wife Kim Kardashian and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. The billionaire rap icon announced his late-entry bid for the presidency in a July 4 tweet: “We must now realize the promise of America by trusting God, unifying our vision and building our future. I am running for president of the United States.” Speaking to Forbes magazine in an interview published Wednesday, the musician said he was “taking the red hat off, with this interview,” and starting his own party for 2020, “the Birthday Party.” If President Trump weren’t already the GOP candidate, West told the magazine, he would run as a Republican, adding, “I will run as an independent if Trump is there.” Asked why his political party will be called the Birthday Party, he explained, “Because when we win, it’s everybody’s birthday.” As for how he will get to the Oval Office, West believes it is all in the hands of God. “Let’s see if the appointing is at 2020 or if it’s 2024 — because God appoints the president. If I win in 2020 then it was God’s appointment. If I win in 2024 then that was God’s appointment,” he said.

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Title: Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon missing A massive search is underway for the mayor of South Korea’s capital city, Seoul, after his daughter reported that he left a verbal message that sounded like a will, according to reports. The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said it was canvassing Sungbuk-dong, a district in northern Seoul, where Mayor Park Won-soon’s phone signal was last detected, Reuters reported. His daughter, who reported him missing at 5:17 p.m. local time, said his phone was off, officials said. She told police her father left “a will-like” message before leaving their home a few hours earlier — but she didn’t explain the contents of the message, a police official said. About 150 officers, a drone and a canine have been mobilized for Park’s search, according to police. Government official Kim Ji-hyeong confirmed that Park did not show up for work Thursday because of unspecified reasons and canceled all his schedules. Park — a longtime civic activist and human rights lawyer who has been the mayor since 2011 — is seen as a potential presidential hopeful for the liberals during the 2022 presidential elections. He had established himself as a fierce opponent of former conservative President Park Geun-hye and backed the millions of people who flooded city streets in late 2016 and 2017, calling for her ouster amid a corruption scandal. Park Geun-hye, who was removed from office in 2017, is serving a long prison term on bribery and other charges. Seoul, a city with 10 million people, has been a new epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in South Korea, which relaxed its strict social distancing rules in early May. With Post wires

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Title: Driver who hit two protesters in Seattle charged with three felonies A man accused of fleeing after mowing down two protesters with his Jaguar in Seattle — killing a 24-year-old veterinary clinic worker — has been hit with three felony charges, including vehicular homicide. Dawit Kelete, 27, was charged by the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office with vehicular homicide, vehicular assault and reckless driving. He drove around vehicles that were parked on Interstate 5 to protect people during Black Lives Matter demonstrations Saturday before he struck Summer Taylor and Diaz Love. Taylor, the veterinary clinic staffer, died Saturday night and Love, 32, of Portland, Oregon, was hospitalized in serious condition with multiple leg and arm fractures and internal injuries, officials said. In a message posted on Facebook late Sunday, Love reported being “alive and stable.” “In a lot of pain. I cannot believe Summer was murdered,” Love said. “If they thought this murder would make us back down, they are very wrong. Very wrong.” The suspect’s lawyer, John Henry Browne, said his client, who is black, did not intentionally hit the protesters and called the crash a “horrible, horrible accident.” “There’s absolutely nothing political about this case whatsoever,” Browne said. “My client is in tears. He’s very remorseful. He feels tremendous guilt.” Kelete is a US citizen originally from Eritrea, in Africa, and lives with his parents in Seattle, Browne said, adding that they’re very religious. Kelete was alone in his Jaguar XJL at the time of the incident, state police said. A nearby security camera captured the car heading the wrong way up the Stewart Street I-5 exit ramp, past several warning signs that said “Wrong Way,” according to the charging document. Since it was an exit ramp, “a driver must make a deliberate and sharp right U-turn in order to drive southbound on I-5,” the document said. He was driving at highway speeds when he first noticed the demonstrators, the document said. A graphic video captured the Jag approaching at a high rate of speed. It appeared to swerve a bit as it came toward two people still in the road. The car slid sideways as it hit the two protesters. The driver then slowed and turned on his flashers. “The defendant stopped several hundred yards from the scene,” prosecutors said. “He was approached by witnesses who yelled at him to exit the vehicle. After the witness began hitting and pushing his vehicle, the defendant drove away at a high speed.” One of the protesters managed to stop Kelete’s car by driving in front of him until troopers arrived. Kelete agreed to take a field sobriety test for drugs and alcohol. The tests showed he was not impaired, police said. “The driver was reserved and appeared sullen throughout his time in custody,” Trooper James McGuire wrote in the arrest report. “At one point he asked if the injured pedestrians were okay.” Kelete remains in custody on $1.2 million bail and is scheduled to be arraigned on July 22. With Post wires

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Title: Vili Fualaau ‘lost a piece of himself’ after Mary Kay Letourneau died Vili Fualaau — whom Mary Kay Letourneau raped when he was 12 years old but went on to marry and have kids with — “lost a piece of himself” when she lost her battle with cancer this week, a close friend of his said in a new interview. Fualaau’s pal told People magazine that although the pair had been apart for three years, Letourneau, 58, had kept the 37-year-old informed about her Stage 4 colon cancer and they “still had love for each other.” The former Washington state teacher achieved notoriety for her sexual relationship with the sixth-grader beginning in 1996, when police discovered them in a minivan parked in the suburban Seattle city of Des Moines Marina. Letourneau initially told police the boy was 18, raising suspicions that something sexual was going on. About two months later, she became pregnant with Fualaau’s child. She pleaded guilty in 1997 to raping the youngster. While awaiting sentencing, their daughter Audrey was born. Letourneau’s sentence was reduced to six months in a plea deal, but two weeks after her release, they were caught having sex — when she was pregnant with their second child — and was jailed again. The couple married on May 20, 2005, when she was a registered sex offender. In 2017, Fualaau filed for legal separation. “They didn’t speak every day, but she would update him on her cancer treatment,” the friend told People. “At the beginning, the talk was that she was going to beat it, that even though the prognosis wasn’t good, that she’d fight with everything she had, and that she had a shot of surviving it.” The friend said that “as things got into the springtime, the thinking was that she was going to need a miracle.” But by June, Letourneau’s cancer had “spread so much” that “she started saying her goodbyes,” the friend told the mag. “She would talk to Vili or he would call her to see how she was doing. The marriage had split up, but they still had love for each other,” the friend continued. “They had children together and he would always say that she was his first love. So of course he is sad at the loss. He’s sad for the girls, but he’s also sad for himself.” After she succumbed to the disease, Fualaau “lost a piece of himself,” the friend said. “He understands how f–ked up everything was in how they got together. He’s not stupid. But he can’t turn off his feelings completely, and it’s a big loss for him. He talked to her right before she passed, and they said everything they needed to say.”

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Title: Nurse and mother of four killed trying to help car crash victim A 36-year-old mother of four is dead after stopping to help a driver who was in a traffic accident in Boone County, Kentucky. Ana Kincart, who worked as a nurse at VA clinic in nearby Lawrenceburg, Indiana, was driving to work when she stopped to check on the driver of a car that she witnessed being hit only a few moments before on the Carroll Cropper Bridge, People.com reports. As Kincart was waiting for the authorities to arrive so she could give a statement, she was hit by another car, killing her and the other driver, according to a Facebook post written by family members. “Our hearts are ripped out,” wrote stepfather Andy Cline. “Being a nurse she exited her car to check on the young man in the accident. He was OK but she stays to give a statement to the police. While waiting she was rear-ended by two different vehicles killing both she one person who was in the other accident. Please pray for my family.” Family described Kincart as a “loving, selfless nurse” who worked throughout the coronavirus pandemic. The Boone County Police Department issued a statement saying that the “double fatal accident” took place at 8:30 a.m. on Monday, and initially involved a single Chevrolet Camaro, but turned into a multi-car collision that took the life of two people in separate cars. Of the four cars that were involved, one driver was taken to the hospital with moderate injuries while the other was not injured at all. The other driver who was killed was 24-year-old, Brandon Hicks. Kincart is survived by her husband, Donnie, and four children.

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Title: CA waitress tells why she canceled tech CEO's racist rant on Asian family The California waitress who confronted a Silicon Valley tech CEO during his racist tirade against an Asian family said Wednesday that she “did what needed to be done.” Gennica Cochran, a server at Lucia restaurant in Carmel Valley, recalled in an interview with KGO-TV what led her to defend Jordan Chan and her family on Saturday from Michael Lofthouse, the CEO of Solid8. “I felt very protective of them,” Cochran told the news station. “You don’t come in here and say those kinds of things to people. Especially people feel so raw coming out of quarantine. “Most of these people, this is the first time that they’ve been out to dinner, and then you have someone attacking them, it was just no, no, I don’t have time for this.” In a viral video filmed by Chan, the tech entrepreneur can be seen gesturing at the family while saying, “Trump’s going to f–k you!” “You f–kers need to leave,” he says to them as he stands up and puts on his coat. Cochran then steps in, telling Lofthouse, “You do not talk to a guest like that, you need to leave now.” The server, who also teaches yoga, said Wednesday that springing into action “was just something that came over me and I just did what needed to be done.” “I did what anybody else should or would do in that situation,” she told the outlet. Lofthouse has since apologized to the Chan family. “My behavior in the video is appalling. This was clearly a moment where I lost control and made incredibly hurtful and divisive comments,” Lofthouse said in an email to KGO-TV. “I would like to deeply apologize to the Chan family. I can only imagine the stress and pain they feel.” Since Saturday’s incident, several GoFundMe pages have been set up for Cochran. One of them, titled, “A Big Tip for an Everyday Hero,” had raised more than $25,000 by Wednesday night.

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Title: TSA improves COVID-19 safety precautions after whistleblower complaint The Transportation Security Administration has improved coronavirus protection for airport screeners after a TSA official accused the agency of endangering travelers, the whistleblower’s lawyer said Wednesday. The changes include requiring screeners to change or sanitize gloves after every time they pat down a passenger, and to wear face shields around travelers if there aren’t plastic barriers between them and the public. Jay Brainard, the top TSA official in Kansas, complained last month to a federal whistleblower-protection office that TSA didn’t train staff for the virus pandemic and barred supervisors from giving screeners stockpiled N95 respirators in March when facial coverings such as surgical masks were hard to buy. Brainard said the TSA eventually made changes in response to COVID-19, including requiring screeners to wear masks, but the measures did not go far enough. A TSA spokesman confirmed that Brainard met last week with TSA Administrator John Pekoske, but he did not directly address whether the agency changed procedures as a result. “We believe whistleblowers provide a valuable service to government,” said TSA spokesman Carter Langston, while adding that “internal feedback comes from many different sources and we listen to all of them.” Langston said the TSA “has adopted a continuous improvement approach throughout the pandemic.” The agency said on its website Wednesday that 997 employees have tested positive for COVID-19 and six have died, plus one screening contractor. Last month, Brainard filed a complaint against his own agency with the Office of Special Counsel, which ordered TSA’s parent agency, the Homeland Security Department, to investigate the claims. Homeland Security sent the matter back to the TSA “to investigate itself,” Brainard’s attorney, Tom Devine said — one element of the government’s response that he found troubling. “This is the fastest I’ve ever seen an agency make changes” after a whistleblower complaint, said Devine, an attorney with the Government Accountability Project, which represents whistleblowers. He faulted the agency, however, for not enacting more changes in use of protective gear until Brainard filed a complaint with the special counsel and talked to reporters.

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Title: University of Delaware sued for Joe Biden’s Senate records The Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF) and Judicial Watch announced on Wednesday that it is suing the University of Delaware for access to Joe Biden‘s Senate records. According to DCNF, Judicial Watch filed the joint lawsuit in the Superior Court of Delaware related to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests both groups made back in April in hopes of obtaining documents from Biden’s decades-long career as the Delaware senator as well as any logs of those “who have visited the location where the records are stored.” The lawsuit comes after the Delaware Department of Justice denied DCNF’s appeal on July 1 when its FOIA request was previously denied. “The University of Delaware should do the right thing and turn over Joe Biden’s public records as required by law,” DCNF President Neil Patel said. “Partisan gamesmanship by a public university is unseemly and unlawful. If they don’t want to do the right thing, we will force them in court.” “The University of Delaware should stop protecting Joe Biden and provide the public access to his public records, as Delaware law requires,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton similarly stated. Biden’s Senate records became the subject of scrutiny after Tara Reade came forward accusing her former boss of a 1993 sexual assault and suggested that her formal complaint that documented harassment in Biden’s office could be stored at the university. Both Biden and the Biden campaign have repeatedly denied Reade’s allegations. Reade appeared to support the lawsuit, tweeting on Wednesday, “I emailed Univ of Delaware and my request for my records was denied. What if many people emailed [and] contacted the Univ of Delaware to unseal the files?”

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Title: American accused of fatally stabbing Rome cop says he was beaten in custody One of the Bay Area students standing trial in Italy for the murder of a police officer said he was roughed-up in custody, according to a report on Wednesday. Finnegan Lee Elder, 20, told his dad and lawyer that he was beaten in a Rome police station after his arrest last July for allegedly stabbing a plainclothed cop to death during a drug bust, Agence France-Presse reported. “They beat me pretty bad …,” Elder said during the Aug. 2, 2019, conversation, which was secretly recorded. “They threw me to the ground, kicked me, punched me, stood on me, spit on me,” Elder added, saying he was left with bruises on his arms and legs. A transcript of the conversation was requested by the court as part of Elder’s ongoing trial, and obtained by AFP on Wednesday. Elder and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, 19, stand accused of killing Carabinieri Deputy Brigadier Mario Cerciello Rega during a scuffle in the early hours of July 26, 2019. The claim of police brutality comes after a leaked photo showed Natale-Hjorth blindfolded with a scarf and handcuffed at the Rome barracks where he and Elder had been taken for questioning. Speaking to his dad and American attorney, Elder said he hadn’t been blindfolded like Natale-Hjorth, but that cops “kept my head down a long time,” leaving him unsure of exactly which police station he was in. “I don’t really remember too well … I was, they had me waiting so long, it’s kind of a blur.” He added: “They said they would give me 40 years if I didn’t give them my phone password.” Prosecutors claim that Elder repeatedly plunged a 8-inch “attack-style” knife into Cerciello, while Natale-Hjorth grappled with the officer’s partner nearby. Cerciello was stabbed 11 times and left bleeding on a deserted street near an upscale hotel in Rome’s Prati neighborhood, where the Americans were staying. Elder, who was 19 at the time of the slaying, has admitted to stabbing Cerciello, claiming self-defense. He insists that the cop and his partner, who was also in plain clothes, attacked him and Natale-Hjorth — and he thought he was fighting for his life against drug dealers. Natale-Hjorth initially told investigators he hadn’t been involved, but his fingerprints were found on a ceiling panel in the hotel room where the students had hidden the knife. Under Italian law, anyone who participates even indirectly in a murder can face homicide charges. Defense attorneys claim that Cerciello’s partner, Andrea Varriale, lied in the aftermath of the fatal stabbing — including about whether the cops were armed, as they should have been while on duty. Asked about the allegations of police brutality, Elder’s father Ethan Elder told AFP: “The awful truth of what Finnegan was subjected to and endured as a terrified 19-year-old is now being revealed to the world.” “Our hearts break every minute of every hour of every day.”

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Title: Florida men busted for selling bleach as 'miracle' coronavirus cure A Florida family has been hit with federal charges for allegedly peddling a so-called coronavirus miracle cure that is actually a concoction used as an industrial bleach. Mark Grenon, 62, and three of his sons, are accused of marketing and selling the product named Miracle Mineral Solution through an entity called the Genesis II Church of Health and Healing in Bradenton, according to a criminal complaint. The toxic solution pushed by the Grenon family, also known as MMS, is typically used to treat textiles, industrial water, pulp and paper, according to the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA has not approved the solution for any health-related use and has said ingesting it can cause vomiting and dehydration. The Grenon’s also marketed the bleaching agent as a cure for other serious health conditions, including cancer, autism and AIDS, according to the complaint. A Miami federal judge in April had ordered Genesis II Church of Health and Healing to stop selling MMS, but the Grenon’s ignored the ruling. “We will NOT be participating in any of your UNCONSTITUTIONAL Orders, Summons, etc,” read one email from Mark Grenon to US District Judge Kathleen Williams. “Again and again I have written you all that . . . you have NO authority over our Church.” The father and his sons –Jonathan Grenon, 34, Jordan Grenon, 26, and Joseph Grenon, 32 — are charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to violate the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act and criminal contempt. With Post wires

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Title: US Army soldier sentenced to life for sexual assault of minor A 51-year-old US Army soldier was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday for aggravated sexual assault of a minor while on active duty, the Department of Justice announced. Daniel Kemp Sr. of Cameron, N.C., pleaded guilty last December. Kemp’s wife, Shanynn Kemp, harassed and prevented a witness from speaking out to law enforcement officials about the crimes, according to court documents from the plea hearings. The investigation of the case — brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to stop pedophilia and child abuse — was led by US Army Criminal Investigation Command and the FBI.

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Title: Doggy deliveries help Colombians shop during coronavirus pandemic Advertisement MEDELLIN, Colombia — Eight-year-old Eros trots through the streets of this hilly city several times a day with a straw basket in his jaws, taking vegetables, fruit and packaged foods to customers of the El Porvenir mini-market. The chocolate Labrador retriever is paid with treats and massages of his furry head. “He helps us to maintain social distancing,” says Eros’ owner Maria Natividad Botero. “And people love it when we send the dog.” Eros wasn’t always a star. He was accepted into the family begrudgingly by Botero after repeated requests by her son to adopt a dog. But Botero and the rest of the family quickly fell in love with the pup. And when they opened a mini market four years ago in the hilltop neighborhood of Tulipanes, he started to accompany Botero and her kids to make deliveries. Eros doesn’t know how to read addresses. But he remembers the names of customers who have previously rewarded him with treats. And with some practice, he has learned to go to their houses on his own.

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Title: Derek Chauvin told George Floyd that it takes 'a lot of oxygen to talk' The Minneapolis police officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck for nearly 8 minutes before he died dismissed his pleas of being unable to breath, saying “it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk,” it was revealed Wednesday. Newly released transcripts of body camera video recordings from two of the cops involved in the May 25 fatal encounter also show that Floyd told the officers arresting him more than 20 times that he could not breathe. “You’re going to kill me, man,” Floyd said after he was handcuffed and placed on the ground, according to a body camera recording transcript from former officer Thomas Lane — one of four cops charged and fired over Floyd’s death. “Then stop talking, stop yelling. It takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk,”  replied Derek Chauvin, who had his knee pressed on Floyd’s neck. The transcripts, not the actual footage, of Lane’s and former officer J. Kueng body camera recordings were made public Wednesday as part of Lane’s request to have his charges dropped. Lane, a rookie cop, was holding Floyd’s legs during the arrest and twice asked if officers should roll Floyd onto his side, but Chauvin said no, the transcripts show. Earl Gray, Lane’s attorney, said in Wednesday’s memorandum that there is no probable cause to charge his client. “Lane had no basis to believe Chauvin was wrong in making that decision,” not to roll Floyd over, Gray wrote. Floyd’s police-involved death has sparked a global movement against racial injustice and police brutality. As he was being pinned to ground, bystanders repeatedly asked the officers to check his pulse. Former officer J. Kueng, who was at Floyd’s midsection checked and said, “I can’t find one.” “Huh?” Chauvin said, according to the transcript of Keung’s body camera video. Chauvin has been charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter. Lane, Kueng and Tou Thao, the officer who was watching bystanders, were charged with aiding and abetting both second-degree murder and manslaughter. A spokesman for the attorney general’s office said prosecutors plan to oppose Lane’s motion to dismiss. With Post wires

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Title: Alexander Hamilton would be a right-leaning Democrat today: historians Those who stand for nothing fall for anything — and if Alexander Hamilton were alive today, he would stand politically near the center as a right-leaning Democrat, historians say. “He would be a Ted Kennedy-type of Democrat, not a crazy Bernie Sanders-like socialist,” Thomas DiLorenzo, author of the book “Hamilton’s Curse,” told The Post after the debut of the insanely popular “Hamilton” musical on Disney+. America’s “$10 Founding Father without a father” — who founded the first political party in the US, the Federalist Party — supported a strong central government, which aligns closer to the ideals of the Democratic Party today, experts say. “He wanted the government to be bigger than what the Constitution called for, so in that way, he would be more like a Democrat,” DiLorenzo said. “He was clever with words and used interpretation to achieve his goal of unlimited government.” In the Broadway sensation, Lin-Manuel Miranda depicts Hamilton as a staunch abolitionist, but in reality, Hamilton wasn’t as radical — with historians noting he married into a slave-owning family and may have once owned slaves himself. Instead of hardline opposition, he pushed for gradual emancipation as a founding member of the New York Manumission Society. However, Seth Cotlar, a professor of history at Willamette University, says that Hamilton’s antislavery views were still progressive at the time, which would likely make him a Democrat if he was alive today. “In New York, he was part of an organization that fought to protect free black people from being kidnapped into slavery,” Cotlar told The Post. “In that way, his position on slavery was more akin to contemporary liberal politics.” But unlike left-wing factions of the Democrat party, you wouldn’t see Hamilton taking to the streets to actively and loudly protest racial injustice or any other issue, Cotlar said. “He didn’t believe in activism out on the streets,” he said in a reference to protests over the Jay Treaty with Great Britain designed by Hamilton in 1795, which some Americans believed conceded too much to the British monarchy. “In 1795, there were a lot of working-class people protesting it in the streets. Hamilton got up on boulder to explain why they were wrong and someone chucked a rock at him and he ducked out.” In addition, Hamilton’s support of capitalism indicates America’s first Secretary of the Treasury would have some right-leaning tendencies, too, by today’s standards. “In terms of economic ideas, he was a proponent of industrial capitalism and incentivizing people with capital,” Cotlar said. “In that way, he was more conservative.” Meanwhile, other historians said the founding father doesn’t fit squarely into either political category. “Political parties are never that constant over the course of history. You could pull out one thread and say he would be a Democrat or a Republican — but I’d say he’d be neither,” said Joanne Freeman, a professor of history and American studies at Yale University. “Hamilton” the musical was first performed on Broadway in 2015 and has since won 11 Tony Awards. It premiered on Disney+ July 3.

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Title: Security guard charged with murder after facemask dispute A California security guard has been charged with murder after allegedly shooting a man dead during a dispute over a facemask. Umeir Hawkins, 32, was working as a guard in a market in Gardena Sunday when he began arguing with Jerry Lewis, 50, after he entered the store without a mask, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. Lewis decided to visit the store as he was waiting for a tow truck to repair two flat tires on his vehicle, police told the local CBS affiliate. Under the state’s face-covering mandate, all residents must wear a mask while inside most public spaces. Lewis then left the store, but returned later and got into a physical fight with Hawkins. As Lewis was walking away, Hawkins drew a gun and shot Lewis, who was pronounced dead at the scene, prosecutors allege. Hawkins’ wife, Sabrina Carter, 50, was also charged in connection to Lewis’ killing. Carter had been waiting in the parking lot for Hawkins to finish his shift when the fight broke out, the station reported. Carter allegedly intervened in the brawl, drawing a second firearm and pointing it at Lewis and other shoppers in the store as the two men fought — though she did not fire her weapon, police told the station. Both Hawkins and Carter were convicted in 2013 for assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury, according to prosecutors. She faces one count of possession of a handgun by a felon, as does Hawkins in addition to his murder charge. Hawkins and Carter pleaded not guilty to the charges Wednesday. Bail for Hawkins, who faces up to life in prison, is set at $1 million and bail for Carter, who faces three years behind bars, is set at $30,000.

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Title: AG Barr calls unfair policing of black men a 'widespread phenomenon' WASHINGTON — Attorney General William Barr on Wednesday acknowledged a “widespread phenomenon” where communities of color are treated differently by police in the US. “I do think it is a widespread phenomenon that African American males, in particular, are treated with extra suspicion and maybe not given the benefit of the doubt,” Barr told ABC News. The comments stand in stark contrast to other Trump administration officials such as White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow, who last month claimed systemic racism doesn’t exist. Barr told ABC News that the death of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer in Minneapolis showed the country still had work to do to correct decades of mistrust. “I think it is wrong if people are not respected appropriately and given their due,” he said, “and I think it’s something we have to address.” “Before the George Floyd incident I thought we were in a good place,” Barr continued. “I think that this episode in Minneapolis showed that we still have some work to do in addressing the distrust that exists in the African American community toward law enforcement.” The nation’s top law enforcement officer — who was criticized for his aggressive response to protests in Washington, DC, in the wake of Floyd’s death — said he hoped the Minnesota man’s murder would be “a catalyst for the kinds of changes that are needed.” Congress is seeking its own changes to policing in the US but a police reform bill introduced by GOP Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina ultimately died in the Senate after Democrats voted against it. A similar bill passed by the House seeking to ban chokeholds is also unlikely to pass the Senate.

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Title: Houston scraps Texas GOP’s in-person convention over coronavirus HOUSTON — Houston officials on Wednesday canceled the Texas Republican Party’s in-person convention, saying the spread of the coronavirus made it impossible to hold the event as scheduled. Mayor Sylvester Turner said that the city’s lawyers exercised provisions in the contract that the Texas GOP signed to rent the downtown convention center for a three-day event to have started July 16, with committee meetings earlier in the week. “The public health concerns outweighed anything else,” he said Wednesday afternoon. The fight over whether thousands of Republican supporters will converge on downtown Houston as the city’s hospitals are overwhelmed is a snapshot of the broader political tensions that have underscored Texas’ handling of the pandemic. Turner, a Democrat, previously resisted calls to cancel the convention. Gov. Greg Abbott, the state’s top Republican, had publicly deferred to state party leaders who last week voted by a 2-to-1 margin to go forward with an in-person event. Abbott had been noncommittal about whether he would attend the convention. Last week, Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said he was through listening to the nation’s top infectious disease expert, saying Dr. Anthony Fauci “doesn’t know what he’s talking about” over comments that some states reopened too fast. But even Patrick, who is chairman of Trump’s reelection campaign in Texas, expressed misgivings about his party pressing forward with the convention. State Republican chair James Dickey said earlier Wednesday that the party was weighing its legal options as Turner indicated the city would move to cancel the gathering. The Texas Medical Center, a consortium of Houston hospitals, has moved into surge capacity for its intensive-care beds. Texas reported more than 10,000 new confirmed cases statewide for the first time on Tuesday. The Texas Medical Association had already withdrawn as a convention sponsor and urged organizers to cancel. The number of infections is thought to be far higher because many people have not been tested, and studies suggest people can be infected with the virus without feeling sick. Abbott in recent weeks has moved to close bars again, restrict the size of outdoor gatherings, and institute a broad mandate requiring people to wear masks in public. Dickey said in his statement Wednesday that organizers had planned to institute daily temperature scans, provide masks, and install hand sanitizer stations. Echoing the criticism among some conservatives to the government’s coronavirus response, Dickey argued attendees at any convention would have more protection than the tens of thousands of protesters who gathered in downtown Houston following the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white police officer pressed his knew into Floyd’s neck for nearly eight minutes. Turner “does not want Houston to get back to work,” Dickey said. “He is not able to move forward and rise to these new challenges.” Speaking Wednesday afternoon, the mayor said he waited to act because he hoped state Republicans would cancel the event on their own. He added that he thought of his late mother, who worked as a hotel maid, and whether others in her position would face a heightened risk of infection if the convention went forward. “No one wanted to step in and be the heavy and to say no, and then run the risk of being accused of being political,” he said. “But if after all of that, you still refuse to recognize the public health danger to everyone involved, then I am still the mayor.” The national Republican Party is also pushing to have an in-person convention this year, moving the event from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Jacksonville, Florida, after North Carolina officials would not provide guarantees sought by President Donald Trump. But in recent days, a growing number of Republican senators said they would skip the convention. Texas Democrats held an online convention in June, and national Democrats plan to hold an almost entirely virtual convention in August.

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Title: Scientists warn of potential COVID-linked brain damage The world should brace itself for a possible wave of coronavirus-related brain damage leading to inflammatory diseases, psychosis and delirium, scientists warned Wednesday. A new study from University College London described 43 cases of COVID-19 patients who suffered either temporary brain dysfunction, strokes, nerve damage or other serious brain effects — adding to the growing research linking the infectious illness to neurological damage. “Given that the disease has only been around for a matter of months, we might not yet know what long-term damage COVID-19 can cause,” said Ross Paterson, who co-led the study published in the journal Brain. “Doctors need to be aware of possible neurological effects, as early diagnosis can improve patient outcomes.” Nine of the patients studied who had brain inflammation were also diagnosed with a rare condition called acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) which is more usually seen in children and can be triggered by viral infections. Researchers said they normally see one patient per month diagnosed with ADEM at their London clinic —  but that number spiked to at least one per week after the pandemic struck. Neuroscientists say this new evidence is concerning. “My worry is that we have millions of people with COVID-19 now. And if in a year’s time we have 10 million recovered people, and those people have cognitive deficits … then that’s going to affect their ability to work and their ability to go about activities of daily living,” Adrian Owen, a neuroscientist at Western University in Canada, said. Owen said the study shows the need for larger, more detailed collection of global data to learn how common the neurological and psychiatric complications are. “This disease is affecting an enormous number of people,” Owen said. “That’s why it’s so important to collect this information now.” The research adds to recent studies which also found COVID-19 can damage the brain. “Whether we will see an epidemic on a large scale of brain damage linked to the pandemic — perhaps similar to the encephalitis lethargica outbreak in the 1920s and 1930s after the 1918 influenza pandemic — remains to be seen,” said Michael Zandi, from UCL’s Institute of Neurology, who co-led the study. With Post wires

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Title: Muslim woman gets 'ISIS'-labeled Starbucks drink A Muslim woman in Minnesota said a Starbucks employee wrote the word “ISIS” on her coffee cup after she ordered the drink, according to a report. The woman, identified by CNN only as Aishah, told the network she received the offensively labeled drink when she ordered a coffee from a Starbucks that’s inside a Target in St. Paul. When Aishah went to tell the employee her name, the barista scribbled something on the side of the cup before she could finish, according to the report. The employee then handed her the drink, which had the word “ISIS” — an abbreviation for the Islamic State terrorist group — written on it in black marker, CNN reported. “The moment I saw it, I was overwhelmed with a lot of emotions,” Aishah told the network. “I felt belittled and so humiliated. This is a word that shatters the Muslim reputation all over the world. I cannot believe that in this day and age, something like this can be considered acceptable. It isn’t OK,” she added. The state’s Council on American-Islamic Relations is now calling for all staff involved in the incident to be fired from the shop. A spokesperson for Target, which operates the Starbucks store, told CNN the labeling was “an unfortunate mistake.” “We have investigated the matter and believe that it was not a deliberate act but an unfortunate mistake that could have been avoided with more clarification. We’re taking appropriate actions with the team member, including additional training, to ensure this does not occur again,” they said in a statement.

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Title: Counterfeit $20 bill now part of George Floyd murder case Advertisement The counterfeit $20 bill that cost George Floyd his life is now part of the murder case against the ex-Minneapolis cops charged in his death, according to court records made public Wednesday. The lawyer for accused former cop Thomas Lane said the crumpled bills found between the seats of Floyd’s SUV put the officer on alert from the start after Floyd repeatedly reached down and ignored 10 requests to show his hand. “From the initial interaction with Floyd and his vehicle, Lane noticed the driver and passenger in the vehicle digging underneath the seat, as if reaching for something,” defense attorney Earl Gray said in a motion to dismiss charges against Lane which included photos of the bills. “Floyd had his hands down below the seat, leaning forward,” Gray wrote. “After not showing his hands upon command, Lane drew his gun. Floyd moved his hand up quickly and attempted to step out of the vehicle. Once Floyd’s hands were up, Lane put his gun away.” Gray said that, after the car was searched, two $20 bills and two $1 bills that he saw were counterfeit were found between the seats, “right where Lane saw Floyd put his right hand.” Photos and transcripts in the court filing paint a fuller picture of the encounter that ended with Floyd’s death on May 25 after police responded to reports of a man attempting to pass a counterfeit $20 bill at a local store. Video of the fatal encounter shows Floyd pinned down by the cops, with ex-Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin pressing his knee against Floyd’s neck for nearly 8 minutes. Floyd is heard repeatedly yelling that he couldn’t breathe. All four cops were fired the following day. Chauvin, 44, was arrested and is being held on $1.25 million bond on murder charges. Lane and the other two former officers — Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng — face aiding and abetting charges and are free on $750 bond. But Gray said in the new court filing that prosecutors lacked probable cause to charge Lane, and said he had even asked Chauvin to turn Floyd on his side — putting the blame on Chauvin. “During the encounter with Floyd, Lane was going off Officer Chauvin’s experience and what he was saying, hold him here until EMS arrives,” it said. “Lane was aware that Chauvin had 20 years on.” “Lane did not intentionally aid, advise, hire, counsel, or conspire with Chauvin or otherwise procure Chauvin to commit second degree murder,” the filing said. “Lane did not encourage any alleged criminal actions of Chauvin.” Floyd’s death sparked worldwide protests against racial injustice and police brutality.

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Title: Ex-Reddit CEO Ellen Pao 'knew' Ghislaine Maxwell allegations The former CEO of Reddit drew criticism this week after revealing that she and several others at a ritzy 2011 Silicon Valley Christmas party  attended by Ghislaine Maxwell “knew” or “suspected” that she was allegedly supplying underage girls to Jeffrey Epstein but did not call her out. Ellen Pao, the former CEO of Reddit, said in the tweet posted Monday that Maxwell was at the party hosted by Kleiner Perkins, a venture capital giant where she worked as a partner. “She was at the Kleiner holiday party in 2011, but I had no desire to meet her much less have a photo taken with her,” Pao wrote in a tweet on Monday. “We knew about her supplying underage girls for sex, but I guess that was fine with the ‘cool’ people who managed the tightly controlled guest list,” she added. Twitter users slammed Pao for not saying anything about the guest list for years after the party. “Sorry but it sounds like you were fine with it too,” one user responded. “Wait what? Everyone in the room knew she was a child sex trafficker… and no one in the room objected to her presence?” another wrote. “Sounds like you‘re associated with some pretty cool people … ” a third user responded. Pao set her Twitter to private after the criticism, but later lifted the privacy setting. In a second tweet, she clarified that media reports had implicated Maxwell in sex trafficking — but the accused madame had not been charged criminally at the time. “To be clear, the press had described her as supplying underage girls for sex, but she had not been charged so I guess it would be more accurate to say we ‘suspected’ v ‘knew,'” she wrote. When asked by another Twitter user asked if everyone at the party was OK with Maxwell being at the party, she responded that the employees who made the guest list were fine with her attending. The “super exclusive” party was attended by tech industry giants and former politicians, including Al Gore, ex-MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta and former Twitter engineering head Mike Abbott, according to Business Insider. Kleiner Perkins is venture capital giant in Silicon Valley that provided funding for companies such as Amazon, Google and Twitter. Pao served as a partner at the firm before leaving in 2012. Maxwell was arrested last week in New Hampshire and hit with a six-count indictment for allegedly trafficking underage girls for pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and lying about the alleged crimes under oath. At the time of the 2011 party, Epstein had been convicted of sex trafficking in Florida and ordered to register as a sex offender.

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Title: Louisiana lawmaker equates mask mandates with Nazi Germany A Louisiana state lawmaker said people who refuse to wear a facemask during the coronavirus pandemic are being persecuted like Jews in Nazi Germany as he filmed himself destroying a facemask with a chainsaw and blowtorch. Republican State Rep. Danny McCormick made the comments in a video he posted to Facebook criticizing an executive order from Shreveport’s mayor requiring the wearing of face coverings while inside most public buildings or outside when social distancing is not possible. “Masks aren’t bad. Mask mandates are,” McCormick stated as he is filmed crushing what appears to be a printed copy of the order with a wooden staff. “As many of you know, the city of Shreveport has announced an emergency order making masks mandatory,” he went on. “The constitution is being shredded before our very eyes.” Between scenes of McCormick damaging masks, the lawman stated “the government needed a villain.” “People who don’t wear a mask will be soon painted as the enemy — just as they did the Jews in Nazi Germany. Now is the time to push back before it’s too late,” he said. The mask order, which took effect Wednesday evening, came after Shreveport Mayor Adrian Perkins outlined a disturbing spike in hospitalizations as the number of coronavirus cases rose since Memorial Day. “We’ve seen an alarming rise in hospitalizations in our area. On June 12, we achieved a two-month low at 129 COVID positive hospitalizations but today, just 25 days later, we’re at 221,” Perkins said during a news conference Monday announcing the order, the Shreveport Times reported. “These increases are obviously related to community spread, and this is cause for us to act,” Perkins added. Public health experts have strongly recommended face coverings to stop the spread of the virus. States with more longstanding mask mandates, like New York and New Jersey, have managed to successfully reduce infections as other states grapple with massive surges in new cases. But McCormick believes mandating masks is infringing on individual liberty. “This is about liberty. Your body is your private property,” he said in the video. “If the government has the power to force you to wear a mask, they can force you to stick a needle in your arm against your will. They could put a microchip in you, they could even make you take the mark. After all, it’s for the ‘greater good.'” Parkins on Wednesday said the order “isn’t about politics” and stressed that city in northwest Louisianna couldn’t afford more deaths or another business lockdown, the local CBS affiliate reported. “More than 240 people have died from COVID-19 in Caddo Parish since late March, which is more than two people per day,” the mayor said. “This pandemic is the biggest threat to public safety in our lifetimes.”

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Title: Statue of Melania Trump torched in her native Slovenia A wooden statue of first lady Melania Trump was torched near her hometown of Sevnica, Slovenia, on July Fourth, according to the artist who commissioned the sculpture. Brad Downey, a Berlin-based American artist, told Reuters he had the blackened and disfigured life-sized sculpture removed as soon as police informed him a day later of the vandalism. “I want to know why they did it,” said Downey, who had hoped the statue would foster a dialogue about the political situation in the United States and highlight the first lady’s status as an immigrant married to a president sworn to reduce immigration. Melania Trump’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the news service. President Trump in recent weeks has made preservation of statues in the US — even those of Confederate leaders who tried to defeat the union in the Civil War — a campaign priority as a number have been damaged by protesters demonstrating against racism and police brutality Trump has pledged to take a hard line on anyone destroying or vandalizing historical monuments, as political activism against racial injustice swept across the country, threatening 10-year prison terms. Downey, 39, said he had filed a police report and would like to interview the culprits, if found, for a film he is preparing ahead of his exhibition due to open in Slovenia in September. “The investigation in this case has not been completed yet so we cannot reveal details due to the interest of further procedures,” police spokeswoman Alenka Drenik told Reuters. Although the statue’s face was rough-hewn and unrecognizable prior to the fire, the figure was painted with a pale blue wraparound coat resembling the one Melania wore at Trump’s 2017 inauguration. The figure was carved with a chainsaw by local folk artist Ales Zupevc from the trunk of a linden tree. In January, a large wooden statue resembling Donald Trump, designed by a local artist last year, was burnt in Slovenia’s city of Moravce, east of the capital Ljubljana. — With Reuters

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Title: Lori Vallow's daughter allegedly molested by dad before death Lori Vallow’s daughter was allegedly molested by her biological father years before her doomsday-obsessed mom and step-dad were implicated in her disappearance and death — and her mother knew about the abuse, according to newly-surfaced court documents. The Law & Crime Network said it obtained court documents filed in 2008 during a custody battle between Vallow and her third husband, Joseph Ryan, detailing how a social worker reported that Tylee Ryan, then 5, had told her about the alleged abuse. “[The therapist] informed us that Tylee reported being happy about the visits with her dad and wanting those visits to continue during their last session,” states the document, filed July 15, 2008, in a Travis County, Texas court. But “[The therapist] then reported that Tylee added something along the lines of ‘I am scared about overnights,’ ” it continues. “When [the therapist] questioned her about this, she said something like ‘because Joe molested me and Colby,'” referring to her older brother Colby Ryan. The filing states that Vallow came in toward the end of the July 1 therapy session and that “Tylee looked at her mother and said ‘I told her.’ ” It’s unclear if these claims were investigated further by authorities. During an appearance on Dateline in May, Colby, Vallow’s oldest son, also said that he had been sexually and physically abused by his stepfather. “He went out of his way to make a point, he would spank me and just did weird things like little hits on the head, thought it was funny,” Colby said. He then paused before adding: “He was sexually abusive as well.” Colby said he had confided in his mother about the abuse, and that she had been “devastated.” “I remember how devastated she was. I can’t imagine that feeling and that’s why I didn’t want to tell her in the beginning,” he said. Vallow and Ryan were married from 2001 to 2004. The two parents were locked in a contentious child custody battle over Tylee, that lasted up until his death in 2018, in Arizona, which was ruled a heart attack. Vallow, 46, and her current husband, doomsday-related book author Chad Daybell, have been charged with conspiring to hide or destroy the bodies of Tylee, 17, and her younger brother, 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow. The kids’ remains were found buried on Daybell’s Idaho property last month. They had been missing since September. Both Vallow and Daybell, 51, are being held in jail on $1 million bond each.

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Title: Independent autopsy finds 18-year-old was shot 5 times by deputy Attorneys representing the family of a Southern California man who was fatally shot by a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy last month said Wednesday that an independent autopsy found he was shot five times in the back. Andres Guardado, 18, a security guard at an autobody shop, died after he was shot on June 18 in Gardena, setting off a wave of protests amid tense relations between police departments and minority communities nationwide. The attorneys said the autopsy revealed Guardado suffered a graze abrasion to his left forearm with a forward trajectory and did not have alcohol or drugs in his system at the time of his death. They said it proves the shooting was “without a doubt, the result of unjustified police violence against an innocent young man.” “These findings confirm what we have known all along, which is that Andres was unjustifiably killed by a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy,” Guardado’s parents, Cristobal and Elisa, said in a statement. “Andres was a good boy, he was our son and he had so much life ahead of him. Our son did not deserve to die this way.” The autopsy was requested by the family after the sheriff’s department put a “security hold” on the results of the official report from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner. “The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department claims to be guided by principal values of Integrity, Accountability, Service and Ethics, but the Guardado family has seen NOTHING from this Department except a complete lack of transparency and accountability following the unjustified shooting of their son,” family attorney Adam Shea said. “Justice delayed is justice denied.” Out of an abundance of caution, I reached out to @AGBecerra for monitoring of the Guardado investigation. I am committed to transparency and strengthening community faith in the investigative process. — Alex Villanueva (@LACoSheriff) June 23, 2020 Two deputies said they saw Guardado talking to someone in a car the night he died when he allegedly produced a handgun and started running, authorities said. After a short foot chase into an alley, Guardado was shot and pronounced dead at the scene. Attorneys for the two deputies — Miguel Vega, who opened fire, and Chris Hernandez, who did not shoot — told the Los Angeles Times the shooting was justified. Guardado’s family and local activists have expressed doubt about the department’s narrative of events leading up to his death. The department has still not explained why Vega fired his weapon. The sheriff’s department did not immediately respond to a Fox News request for comment. Last month, Sheriff Alex Villanueva said he reached out to the state attorney general to monitor the investigation out of an “abundance of caution.” Guardado’s family said he was working as a security guard at the auto repair shop because the owner wanted to deter graffiti vandals.

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Title: Mexican president praises Trump amid White House visit WASHINGTON — Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Wednesday hailed President Trump at the White House as “respectful” and “kind” to our neighbors to the south as the two signed a joint declaration to celebrate the new US-Mexico-Canada trade deal. Lopez Obrador, a veteran of leftist politics who is often compared to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, effusively praised Trump in the Rose Garden. “Thank you, President Trump, for being increasingly respectful to our Mexican fellow man,” he said through a translator. “To you, President Trump, I want to thank you for your understanding and the help you’ve given us in issues related to trade, commerce, oil, as well as your personal support for the acquisition of medical equipment that we needed urgently to treat our patients of COVID-19.” Lopez Obrador said that he defied criticism and made the trip — a week after the UMSCA pact took effect — because he wanted to deliver a message about Trump to US residents. “You have never sought to impose anything on us violating our sovereignty. Instead of the Monroe Doctrine, you have followed in our case the wise advice of illustrious and prudent George Washington, who said, ‘nations should not take advantage of the unfortunate condition of other people.’ “You have not tried to treat us as a colony. On the contrary, you have honored our condition as an independent nation and that’s why I’m here: to express to the people of the United States that their president has behaved with us with kindness and respect,” the Mexican leader added. Lopez Obrador did not directly address Trump’s past condemnation of crime linked to Mexican illegal immigrants and his vow to make Mexico pay for his border wall. Trump also gushed over Lopez Obrador, describing him as a fellow corruption-busting populist. “Each of us was elected on the pledge to fight corruption and return power to the people, and put the interests of our countries first. And I do that and you do that, Mr. President,” Trump said in the Rose Garden. Trump compared his relationship with Lopez Obrador to the 19th century bond between Mexican President Benito Juarez and President Abraham Lincoln, who continued to back Juarez’s claim to the presidency after he was deposed in the early 1860s by the French-backed Emperor Maximillian I. “The tradition of great respect between Mexican and American presidents goes back to the early days of both of our nations, And in particular, it includes President Abraham Lincoln and President Benito Juarez, who each held one another in very very high esteem,” Trump said. Lopez Obrador visited the Lincoln Memorial and at a DC statute of Juarez before arriving at the West Wing. After meeting in the Oval Office, the leaders signed a joint declaration in the Rose Garden pledging continued good relations between the countries. The leftwing Mexican president, in office since 2018, flew commercial to DC despite the coronavirus pandemic. Before a dinner at the White House with Mexican and US businessmen — including one of the world’s richest men, Carlos Slim — Trump and Lopez Obrador again addressed the press. “The forecasts failed. We are not fighting, we are friends,” Lopez Obrador said.

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Title: Man cut off fingers, tattoos of woman found in barrel: court docs An Ohio man cut off a woman’s fingers and used a razor to remove her tattoos before stuffing her naked body in a barrel, court documents show. Ex-con William Slaton, 35, was arrested on June 30 when cops responded to his home to check out a report that a woman was inside a barrel there, Middletown police announced late last month. When officers told Slaton why they were there, he went back inside his home and into his backyard before tossing a barrel over a fence, police said. The body of a woman — who was identified Tuesday as 21-year-old Cecily Cornett, of Somerville — was discovered inside the barrel, police said. Slaton told detectives he found Cornett’s body hanging in his basement after he used narcotics one morning. He then hacked off her fingers and used a razor knife to cut out her tattoos, according to court documents obtained by the Cincinnati Enquirer. Investigators later found a bowl containing Cornett’s fingers and excised skin in Slaton’s home, according to court records cited by WHIO. Cornett’s nude body was also covered in flies when cops made the grisly find, police said. Slaton let the woman’s body stay in his basement for several days before putting her inside a barrel in his backyard, he reportedly told police. Slaton, who is facing charges of gross abuse of a corpse, tampering with evidence and failure to report a crime or death, was expected to appear for a preliminary hearing Wednesday in Middletown, the Enquirer reports. Cornett’s cause and manner of death are still pending, according to the Butler County Coroner’s Office. Additional charges may be filed in the case, police have said. Slaton was released from prison in 2018 after serving a seven-year sentence on a child pornography conviction, WHIO reports.

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Title: Roger Stone banned from Facebook, Instagram after controversial post President Trump’s longtime adviser Roger Stone has been blocked on Facebook and Instagram just days after he publicly asked the commander-in-chief for clemency and petitioned a federal appeals court to put off his 40-month prison sentence, his supporters charged. “Facebook and Instagram have just disabled Roger Stone’s account in an outrageous display of censorship and because he dares to fight to prove his innocence. WE ARE ALL ROGER STONE NOW. @JackPosobiec @johncardillo @realDonaldTrump,” tweeted an account called “Age of Stone” that was tagged to the president, conspiracy theorist Posobiec and conservative journalist Cardillo. Stone had posted a meme on Instagram Monday depicting him as a sword-wielding Spartan hero from the flick “300,” while showing federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who sentenced him, as Xerxes, the film’s evil antagonist, the National Memo reported. Stone also asked a federal appeals court to delay his sentence for fear of dying in prison from coronavirus — and attacked Jackson for purportedly making “false claims” in her rulings. “I recognize that the chances are overwhelming that the appeals court will remand the matter back to Judge Jackson,” Stone posted on Instagram, though it’s no longer available. “But it is vitally important that the American people see all of the false claims in her most recent ruling and I want the president to know that I have, in good faith, exhausted all of my legal remedies and that an only an act of clemency by the Presideny [sic] will provide Justice in my case where I was charged on politically motivated, fabricated charges and was denied a fair trial with an unbiased judge, an honest jury and uncorrupted and non political prosecutors.” Supporters were outraged, as Stone’s page carried only this message: “Sorry, this page isn’t available.” “BREAKING: #RogerStone banned on FB and IG for asking @realDonaldTrump for clemency. Trump cannot let Roger spend a minute in prison,” Cardillo tweeted, while Posobiec retweeted the Age of Stone post. Stone’s lawyers asked the DC Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday for an emergency stay of Jackson’s ruling last week that put Stone, 67, under house arrest at his Fort Lauderdale home and ordered him to report to a federal prison by July 14. The president has said Stone — a self-described political fixer — should not worry that he will be sent to prison. Stone was convicted on all seven counts of an indictment that accused him of lying to Congress, tampering with a witness and obstructing the House investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the 2016 election.

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Title: Tropical storm Fay could form, bring heavy rainfall to Northeast A tropical storm could form and bring heavy rains, winds and even a small chance of tornadoes to the New York and the Northeast beginning Friday, according to a report. If the storm becomes strong enough, it’s slated to be named Fay as the record-breaking 2020 Atlantic hurricane season has already produced five named storms — meaning the next tropical storm must start with the letter F, the Washington Post reported. Fay would be the earliest “F” storm recorded — beating out 2005’s Tropical Storm Franklin, which formed on July 22, by over a week. The “F” storms historically haven’t arrived until early September, the outlet said. While it’s too soon to tell if it will turn into a tropical storm, the National Hurricane Center estimates Fay has a 70 percent chance of materializing. By Thursday, the weather system could escalate after hitting North Carolina’s Outer Banks’ warm waters, the outlet said. And beginning Friday, the storm could hit New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, bringing one to four inches of rain with possible flooding in New England, the report said. “At this point, what we know is that with this kind of moisture plume someone is going to get a lot of rain,” the National Weather Service in Boston wrote, according to the report. “Where and when that is will have to be settled in the coming days.” Along the coast, from Long Island to Cape Cod, wind gusts could reach between 35 and 50 mph, the outlet said. In the tri-state area, there could be urban flooding with one to three inches of rain on Friday, the report said.

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Title: LAPD investigates if spike in sick calls was 'blue flu' protest The Los Angeles Police Department saw an unusual spike in officers calling in sick over the Fourth of July weekend, and officials are probing whether it was a case of the “blue flu” — an orchestrated protest among fed-up cops, according to a new report. Los Angeles — like some other cities across the nation — has seen unprecedented protests over police killings of black people, and the city council recently agreed to slash the department’s budget by $150 million. Meanwhile, a letter — obtained by the Los Angeles Times — circulated among the rank and file last week encouraging cops to protect their own interests. “They succeeded in defunding the police; what do you think is next? Our pay? Our benefits? Our pensions?” said the letter. “You’re God Damn right all those things are in jeopardy now. We have to send the city a clear message that we are not expendable and we are not going to take this crap anymore.” Then, over the holiday weekend, up to 300 officers called in sick in what department insiders suspect was a case of the “blue flu,” sources told the Times. Certain anti-gang units saw everyone or nearly everyone calling in sick at once, according to the sources. LAPD Chief Michel Moore told the paper the ongoing coronavirus crisis — and rising cases within the department — could be to blame, but he also acknowledged signs that particular officers and units may have called in as part of an organized effort. “Rather than jumping to conclusions and indicting and impugning the integrity of our rank and file, I’m asking that we explore this,” he told the outlet. “We want to find the facts out before we start making sweeping judgments.” Moore added that anyone who knowingly participated in such an effort would be guilty of misconduct and punished, though he did not have a timeline as to when the internal probe would be completed. He said the department staffed up heavily ahead of time because previous Fourth of July weekends had been busy, so he was able to divert officers as others called in sick. Moore added that he was aware of calls for an organized “blue flu” sick day, but that was not his reason for staffing up, according to the paper. The city saw a spike in homicides and shootings over the weekend and an increase in illegal fireworks complaints — though no one has suggested that the increased sick calls are to blame, according to the report. Meanwhile, Najee Ali, a longtime civil rights activist in South LA, where many cops called in sick, suggested that the officers intended to punish those who had been advocating for police funding to be reallocated elsewhere. “It has not gone unnoticed by the residents,” Ali told the paper. “It highlights the lack of character and integrity of those who are supposed to serve the community. They are the ones jeopardizing public safety.” The Los Angeles Police Protective League, which represents rank-and-file officers on labor issues, said it sent an email to its members urging them not to participate in the protest action. “We have heard some unsubstantiated rumors of a potential ‘Blue Flu’ where officers would coordinate to call in sick for the same day. We urge you to not take this action,” the league wrote in an email obtained by the paper. “The Board of Directors of the Los Angeles Police Protective League unequivocally condemns any attempt to engage in a ‘Blue Flu.’ It is wrong, it is illegal, and it is contrary to the oath we all took as police officers to protect our community.”

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Title: US coronavirus cases surpass 3 million The US reached a grim milestone in its fight against the coronavirus Wednesday when it surpassed 3 million cases nationwide, data shows. In the last 28 days, a whopping 1 million new cases were recorded — bringing the national total to 3 million since March. Since January, more than 130,000 Americans have died from the virus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. On Tuesday, the US broke a new record for the most cases confirmed in a single day at 60,021.  While the death rate has declined in recent weeks, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Tuesday “it’s a false narrative to take comfort in a lower death rate.”  As New York knows all too well, it can take patients weeks, or even months, before they succumb to the virus. But California, which has seen the highest number of cases in the country behind New York, just experienced its deadliest week since the end of May, the Mercury News reported.  California saw at least 100 COVID-19 deaths for the third time in the past week, as the weekly average of virus fatalities rose to its highest level in a month, the outlet said.  Aside from deaths, one of the main indicators of the virus’ true impact is the condition of hospitals. Florida, which has the third-highest number of cases nationwide, just below California and above Texas, has run out of ICU capacity in 54 infirmaries, Reuters reported.  Arizona, which has the eighth-highest share of coronavirus cases nationwide, is seeing the bug’s impact on hospitals in Phoenix, the state’s largest city.  “Our hospital is already in dire straits, and they tell us in the next two weeks it is going to get to an unbearable level of crisis,” Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego said Tuesday, according to CNN.  “We need medical professionals, we need testing kits, we need supplies immediately.”

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Title: Trump is weighing TikTok's fate, Robert O'Brien says President Trump is considering whether to ban Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok, White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien said Wednesday. TikTok allows users to post creative video compilations and is extremely popular among teens, rivaling US-based Instagram and Snapchat. “The president is looking very closely at TikTok and WeChat, and some of these other applications that the Chinese are using to obtain data — personal, private, intimate data on Americans and then taking it back to Beijing, where they can use it for malign purposes,” O’Brien told reporters on the White House driveway. The Trump administration is preparing “a significant rollout of measures with respect to China,” O’Brien said. Trump and US officials are angered by China allegedly withholding early information about COVID-19, leaving other countries unprepared for its wave of death and economic ruin. And the Trump administration is seeking to punish China for enacting a new national security law that effectively ended political freedoms in Hong Kong. “This is one of the biggest stories of the decade. We have Hong Kong that’s basically been annexed by the People’s Republic of China, by the Communist Party of China, and they’re imposing their will on a free and democratic people,” O’Brien said. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday that “we’re looking at” TikTok and that Americans should use the social network “only if you want your private information in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.” A federal inter-agency group called the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States reportedly is investigating national security concerns about TikTok. Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department officials reportedly are investigating TikTok’s safeguards for children’s privacy. TikTok said this week it has “never provided user data to the Chinese government, nor would we do so if asked,” that the company takes “safety seriously for all our users” and that in the US, they “accommodate users under 13 in a limited app experience that introduces additional safety and privacy protections designed specifically for a younger audience.” In 2017, China enacted the “National Intelligence Law,” which states that “Any organization or citizen shall support, assist and cooperate with the state intelligence work.”

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Title: Bubba Wallace: Trump should be worried over more than NASCAR Bubba Wallace said President Trump should focus on other things than NASCAR after the commander-in-chief demanded the racecar driver apologize after he assumed a garage pull that was found in his garage stall last month was a “noose.” “When I first read it, I was like, ‘Man, there’s so much more things that are going on in the world that I feel like he should be worried about,'” Wallace told guest host Anthony Anderson on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Tuesday, referring to the president’s Monday tweet. Wallace, 26, the sole black driver on the NASCAR circuit, needled Trump for getting the facts wrong about the rope that was found last month. “But it’s hard to get people to understand, especially when the facts are delivered on the table and they’ve been there for two weeks now. So to be late to the party is one thing and to be wrong on the factual information is another,” Wallace said. He said Trump got one thing correct: “The great officials that continue to stand behind me, NASCAR drivers and officials have continued to stand behind me through it all. He got that part right. It’s a great sport that I’m proud to be a part of.” A member of Richard Petty Motorsports, which employs Wallace, found the noose in the garage stall at the Talladega Superspeedway on June 21 and alerted Wallace’s crew. The FBI launched an investigation the next day. Wallace said he wasn’t the one who reported it to the FBI. “Wasn’t brought to my attention. It was brought to me hours later after the investigation was already going through. And then I woke up Monday morning to find out that I could potentially be talking to the FBI about it because it was in their hands now,” Wallace said. “So not once did I report it. I didn’t even see the picture of the noose, the garage pull, until Tuesday after the race after I’m already home after my second phone call with the FBI. So did not report it. Just was told about it,” he continued. In his tweet, Trump called the incident a “HOAX.” “Has @BubbaWallace apologized to all of those great NASCAR drivers & officials who came to his aid, stood by his side, & were willing to sacrifice everything for him, only to find out that the whole thing was just another HOAX?,” Trump wrote in the posting. “That & Flag decision has caused lowest ratings EVER!” The FBI determined that the rope, shaped into a noose, had been in the stall since at least October 2019.

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Title: Democrats include $1M for Confederate base name changes in bill House Democrats have included $1 million to remove Confederate names from military bases in their annual defense spending legislation. The $694.6 billion defense appropriations bill, unveiled Tuesday by the House Appropriations Committee, includes a provision allocating $1 million to cover the costs “for the renaming of Army installations, facilities, roads and streets named after Confederate leaders and officers.” The Army currently has 10 bases named for Confederates. Draft text of the new spending bill comes as lawmakers continue to battle President Trump over the issue of Confederate symbols. Last week, the commander-in-chief threatened to veto any defense spending bill that required bases honoring Confederates to be renamed. “I will Veto the Defense Authorization Bill if the Elizabeth ‘Pocahontas’ Warren (of all people!) Amendment, which will lead to the renaming (plus other bad things!) of Fort Bragg, Fort Robert E. Lee, and many other Military Bases from which we won Two World Wars, is in the Bill!” he tweeted late Tuesday. The problem, however, is that both the House and Senate versions of the bill include the requirement. The only difference between the two bills is the time span: The House requires that the name changes be made within one year, while the Senate requires the changes within three. Close, powerful allies of the president, most notably Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), have publicly urged Trump not to veto the legislation when it reaches his desk. Speaking to Iowa reporters Monday, Grassley said that while he hoped the president would change his mind on the matter, “if it came to overriding a veto, we’d probably override the veto,” given the bipartisan support for the bill. McConnell also is hoping the commander-in-chief changes his mind, saying in a Fox News appearance last week, “Well, I would hope the president really wouldn’t veto the bill over this issue. “I hope the president will reconsider vetoing the entire defense bill, which includes pay raises for our troops, over a provision in there that could lead to changing the names.”

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Title: China puts visa restrictions on US citizens over Tibet China announced Wednesday it will impose visa restrictions on US citizens engaged in what it called “egregious conduct” with regard to Tibet, the mountainous region that China has been accused of illegally incorporating after invading it in 1950. The announcement, made by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, warned that the move would target “US individuals with egregious conduct related to Tibet issues,” without further elaboration. “We urge the US to stop interfering in China’s internal affairs with Tibet-related issues … so as to avoid further damage to China-US relations,” the spokesman continued. The move comes one day after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the Trump administration was barring Chinese officials from entering the United States who had restricted American authorities, diplomats, journalists and tourists from entering the Tibetan regions. “Beijing has continued systematically to obstruct travel to the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) and other Tibetan areas by U.S. diplomats and other officials, journalists, and tourists, while PRC officials and other citizens enjoy far greater access to the United States,” Pompeo’s statement read. “Therefore, today I am announcing visa restrictions on PRC government and Chinese Communist Party officials determined to be ‘substantially involved in the formulation or execution of policies related to access for foreigners to Tibetan areas,” he continued. The developments with Tibet come as tensions continue to mount between the US and China, as relations worsen over issues related to the coronavirus pandemic and Hong Kong. In late June, Pompeo announced that the US would cease exporting US-origin defense equipment to Hong Kong as mainland China tightened its grip on the city. Citing Beijing’s “decision to eviscerate Hong Kong’s freedoms,” Pompeo said the US was being forced “to re-evaluate its policies toward the territory.” The decision came on the same day that the Communist nation approved a sweeping and contentious national security law that will allow authorities to crack down on what it deems subversive and secessionist activity in Hong Kong. The law has been slammed by many as the Chinese Communist Party’s boldest effort to date to control the territory, which has maintained a semi-autonomous system separate from that of mainland China. Last year, pro-democracy protests took over Hong Kong for nearly a year and left the former British colony in a tense power struggle with the CCP. This latest piece of legislation was passed amid warnings and criticism both in Hong Kong and internationally that it would be used to curb opposition voices in the Asian financial hub. In an effort to voice its opposition to the bill, the State Department announced on June 26 that it would be placing visa restrictions on CCP officials involved in efforts to restrict Hong Kong’s autonomy, something the territory was guaranteed when it was returned to China in 1997. “President @realDonaldTrump promised to punish the CCP officials responsible for eviscerating Hong Kong’s freedoms. Today, we are taking action to do just that– we’ve announced visa restrictions on CCP officials responsible for undermining Hong Kong’s autonomy and human rights,” Pompeo tweeted at the time. China offered a tit-for-tat response soon after, imposing its own visa ban on Americans who interfered with matters relating to Hong Kong.

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Title: Gov. Cuomo blames inmates releases, lax DAs for NYC crime spike The release of inmates from Rikers Island jails during the coronavirus crisis, failure of district attorneys to enforce the law and steady flow of anti-police brutality protests have all fed into a spike in violent crimes in New York City, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday. The governor also emphasized the poisoned relations between the NYPD and New Yorkers as a trigger in the uptick in crime. “May it have contributed? Yeah,” Cuomo said when asked about the city’s release of 2,500 inmates from Rikers to help curb the spread of COVID-19. Of those inmates released, 13 percent were rearrested. “You’re saying 13 percent were rearrested. Well, then those 13 percent contributed, right?” the governor said. “I think the point is right that these are contributing circumstances that frankly are conspiring as a negative synergy that is going on.” The Post reported last month that 10 percent of those released from Rikers since March, when the coronavirus walloped the city, had since been rearrested. Far fewer, however, were involved in violent crimes. He continued, “You have the ongoing relationship between the community and the police. How is that affecting the NYPD? Some of the arrest numbers appear to be down. What does that mean? You have the protests going on.” Cuomo also rapped the district attorneys. “You have the district attorneys who sometimes appear not to be charging on the facts of the crime. There’s a difference between a protester and looting. There’s a difference between a protester and a gun charge,” he said, “And prosecutors have to enforce the law,” Cuomo said, “not political opinions.” Manhattan DA Cy Vance announced last month that he wouldn’t prosecute low-level offenses such as unlawful assembly and disorderly conduct committed by anti-police protesters. Cuomo also called the relationship between police and residents “dysfunctional,” adding, “The trust and respect and mutuality doesn’t work.” “That can only be restored by putting people at a table and reimagining, redesigning, restructuring the police force that New York City wants. And that’s the conversation that has to happen, and everything else is just on the edges, as far as I’m concerned.”

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Title: Texas death row inmate to be first execution post-coronavirus A Texas inmate convicted of fatally shooting an elderly man nearly three decades ago is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection Wednesday — the first execution in the Lone Star State following a five-month delay during the coronavirus pandemic. Billy Joe Wardlow, 45, killed Carl Cole, 82, during a June 1993 robbery at his home in Cason, about 130 miles east of Dallas in the East Texas Pineywoods, near the Louisiana and Arkansas borders. Wardlow’s attorneys, joined by neuroscientists, have argued that at the time of the crime, Wardlow’s 18-year-old brain wasn’t fully developed. “The science really supports precluding the death penalty for anyone under 21 because brain development is still happening,” said attorney Richard Burr. In a letter to the parole board, Wardlow asked for his execution to be delayed for 330 days, but it was denied Monday in a 6-1 vote, the Texas Tribune reported. “I came to death row a scared boy who made poor choices; I will leave death row a man that others admire because I weathered the storms of life with the help of people that loved me,” he wrote. “We should all be so fortunate.” But prosecutors argued that “Wardlow senselessly executed elderly Carl Cole to steal his truck, something that could have been taken without violence because the keys were in it,” according to a petition filed with the Supreme Court by the Texas Attorney General’s Office. He is set to be put to death at 6 p.m. at the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville. If the execution is carried out as planned, it would be the first in Texas since Feb. 6. Missouri was the first state in the US to carry out an execution following coronavirus shutdowns, on May 19. No other executions have taken place in the US since then. Wardlow was initially scheduled to be executed on April 29, but that date was moved to July 8 at the request of Morris County District Attorney Steve Cowan, who cited the statewide disaster declaration over the virus. Texas has seen a surge in coronavirus cases in recent weeks. With Post wires

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Title: Brazil media group to sue President Bolsonaro over coronavirus risks The Brazilian Press Association said it will sue President Jair Bolsonaro for putting them at risk of being infected by the coronavirus after he held a news briefing to announce that he had contracted the deadly disease, according to a report. “Despite knowing he was infected with COVID-19, President Jair Bolsonaro continues to act in a criminal manner and endanger the lives of others,” Paulo Jeronimo de Sousa, the president of the association, said in a statement, the Latin American Herald Tribune reported on Wednesday. De Sousa said Bolsonaro “broke the isolation recommended by doctors” and gathered journalists to “personally inform them” that he tested positive. The 65-year-old leader of Brazil announced on live television Tuesday in the capital, Brasilia, that he was infected, saying an initial examination showed “the lung’s clean.” “It started on Sunday with a certain malaise and became worse throughout the day on Monday, feeling poorly, exhaustion, a bit of muscle ache, fever,” said Bolsonaro as he donned a mask. Bolsonaro has refused to wear a mask and played down the severity of the virus, despite Brazil having the second-highest number of cases in the world after the US. Brazil reported 1,668,589 cases and 66,741 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University count. The US has topped 3 million cases and the death toll has exceeded 131,000. The press association contends he violated the Brazilian Penal Code that punishes people for taking actions that could infect others with a serious illness with up to four years in prison. DeSousa said Bolsonaro put people’s lives directly in imminent danger. “It is not possible for the country to watch without reacting to successive behaviors that go beyond irresponsibility and create clear offenses against public health,” he said.

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Title: Tech CEO apologizes after racist tirade against Asian family The Silicon Valley startup founder who went on a racist tirade against an Asian family at a California restaurant apologized for the outburst — which he chalked up to losing “control,” according to a report. Michael Lofthouse, the CEO of IT company Solid8, was caught on video verbally attacking Jordan Chan and her family Saturday at Bernardus Lodge and Spa’s Lucia restaurant in Carmel Valley. “My behavior in the video is appalling. This was clearly a moment where I lost control and made incredibly hurtful and divisive comments,” Lofthouse said in an email to news station KGO-TV. “I would like to deeply apologize to the Chan family. I can only imagine the stress and pain they feel,” he continued. “I was taught to respect people of all races, and I will take the time to reflect on my actions and work to better understand the inequality that so many of those around me face every day.” In the video filmed by Chan, the tech entrepreneur can be seen gesturing at the family while saying, “Trump’s going to f–k you!” “You f–kers need to leave,” he says to them as he stands up and puts on his coat. A waitress then confronts him, saying, “You do not talk to a guest like that, you need to leave now.” But he continues to rail at the other patrons, shouting at them, “You f–king Asian piece of s–t.” Raymond Orosa, who is Chan’s uncle and witnessed the incident, said he’s not buying Lofthouse’s apology. “He’s just saving face. I think he really meant what he said and what he did,” Orosa told news station KGO-TV. “I don’t believe his words because his actions speak louder than the words he’s saying.”

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Title: Florida Keys reports 11th case of mosquito-borne dengue fever Forget the coronavirus, say hello to dengue fever.  An 11th case of the mosquito-borne illness has been confirmed in the Florida Keys, officials from the Florida Department of Health announced Tuesday.  All of the cases have been found in Key Largo, the northernmost key about 60 miles south of Miami, including eight cases that were found there during the last week of June, officials said.  The viral disease is contracted through the bite of a female Aedes aegypti mosquito, a species that’s considered invasive and also spreads illnesses like yellow fever, Zika and chikungunya. Symptoms of dengue typically appear within two weeks of a bite and include fever, severe muscle aches and pains, and at times a rash, the health department said.  Health officials are in the process of “conducting epidemiological studies to determine the origin and extent of these infections” and believe all cases were acquired locally, according to Alison Kerr, a Florida Keys spokeswoman who spoke to the Miami Herald.  The most recent patient is receiving treatment and is expected to make a complete recovery, Kerr said.  Workers from the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District are targeting adult mosquitoes and larvae using helicopters and trucks, according to spokesperson Chad Huff.  That work includes door-to-door inspections of homes and businesses in the Key Largo area.  To help tamp down the spread, officials are asking locals to remove possible Aedes aegypti breeding grounds such as gutters, tarps, trash cans and pet bowls that contain standing water.  With Post wires

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Title: Ex-college football player catches boy tossed from burning balcony Dramatic video shows a former college football wide receiver making the most critical catch of his life — a 3-year-old boy who was thrown off a burning third-story balcony in Phoenix. Phillip Blanks, 28, said he sprang into action Friday when he heard a commotion outside his apartment building and dashed outside barefoot. He saw an apartment fully engulfed in flames and a woman preparing to toss her son to another man standing nearby, video posted on social media by a witness shows. “There wasn’t much thinking,” Blanks told KABC of his response. “I just reacted. I just did it.” Blanks got to the boy just as his mother frantically screamed “Grab him,” video shows. The former wideout at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, California, and former US Marine attributed his clutch hands to time spent on the gridiron. “I know how to catch,” Blanks told KABC. “I learned how to catch a football. So I’ll give some credit to football.” The boy came down “twirling in the air like a propeller,” Blanks said. “His ankle got twisted up as I was diving,” Blanks continued. “The guy who was there with me — it looked like he wasn’t going to catch him. So that’s why I stepped in. I just wanted to make a better catch.” The boy’s 30-year-old mother, Rachel Long, did not survive the blaze, KABC reports. “She’s the real hero of the story,” Blanks told the station. “Because she made the ultimate sacrifice to save her children.” The boy and his 8-year-old sister, meanwhile, were critically injured in the blaze, WWMT reports. Blanks now wants to “track down” the two children, as well as their father, to help them during their recovery as much as possible, he told WMMT.

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Title: Reward money raised after Seattle TikTokers find bodies in suitcase Two bodies discovered stuffed in suitcases by TikTokers were identified as a Washington couple — and now their family is raising money to help solve their grisly slayings. Jessica Lewis, 35, and boyfriend Austin “Cash” Wenner, 27, were discovered June 19, wrapped in garbage bags and jammed inside luggage washed ashore in West Seattle, news station KOMO reported. The South King County couple — who had been fatally shot — were discovered by teens filming on the shores of Duwamish Head, news station King5 reported. No suspects have been arrested in connection with the deaths, but the family launched a GoFundMe page Monday to raise money for a reward in the case. “Somebody knows something,” said Gina Jaschke, Lewis’ aunt who began the fundraiser. She set the goal at $10,000 and said the money will go to anyone who leads police to a suspect in the case. “Whether it’s out of their heart they turn somebody in, or out of the cash, it doesn’t matter as long as somebody is held accountable for this,” Jaschke said. Seattle police said Monday the case is “under very active investigation” but declined to say whether there were any suspects, King5 reported.

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Title: Exclusive | Congressman vows vote to stop DC from allowing psychedelics Maryland Republican Rep. Andy Harris says Washington, DC, won’t decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms, cacti and plants on his watch. Harris told The Post he’s appalled that drug reform activists submitted on Monday what they say is enough signatures to get an initiative on the November ballot making natural hallucinogens the lowest law enforcement priority. Harris said he will force a House Appropriations Committee vote next week to stop it, using the power of Congress over DC’s budget. “This is a bald-faced attempt to just make these very serious, very potent, very dangerous — both short-term and long-term — hallucinogenic drugs broadly available,” Harris said in an interview. “Public health has to be maintained. We know, of course, once you make it a very low enforcement level and encourage prosecutors not to prosecute it, what would prevent people from using hallucinogens, getting behind the wheel of a car and killing people?” Harris plans to force a vote on a budget rider to a financial services bill due for markup. Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-NY) did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC). House Democrats last month voted overwhelmingly to make DC a state, and Harris admits that the statehood issue may cut against him. “Some Democrats may say, ‘DC residents, if this is what they want, this is what they should get,'” Harris said. “[But] I think there’s probably a lot of Democrats who draw a very distinct line between potent hallucinogens and marijuana. And whereas the majority may support recreational use of marijuana, I doubt the majority supports the broad use of these potent hallucinogens.” Harris, an anesthesiologist and top pharmaceutical industry donation recipient, represents Maryland’s Eastern Shore and has battled local drug reform activists for years. After 65 percent of DC residents voted in 2014 to legalize marijuana, he wrote a budget rider that’s still in effect preventing DC from regulating recreational pot stores. Harris’ top donors, according to nonprofit, nonpartisan research group Open Secrets, are Emergent BioSolutions and US Anesthesia Partners. DC activist Adam Eidinger, who led the marijuana campaign and is working on the psychedelics initiative, fired back at Harris and predicted he will fail. “Andy Harris needs to shut up — you can quote me on that. He needs to listen to what the people are saying and then make the policy. And he has a history of being a big mouth who doesn’t listen,” Eidinger said. “Andy Harris is riding our coattails. He is trying to get in the news media as a hater of drug policy reform and nothing more. He has no viable way of stopping this ballot initiative.” Eidinger said “there would be hell to pay” for Democrats if they back Harris. “But it’s not going to happen. We are Democrats and they are not going to stop us from having an election here to determine an important policing policy,” Eidinger said. The psychedelics initiative is among the first in the US. Denver residents narrowly approved a similar measure last year. In November, Oregon voters will consider a ballot measure on therapeutic use of the drugs. “The wider drug war needs to end. And this is the next step in doing that,” Eidinger said.

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Title: Trump's niece Mary photographed smiling in Oval Office in 2017 WASHINGTON — President Trump’s niece, Mary, sure seemed happy to be in the company of her “monster” of an uncle as she smiled for a picture sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. The photo, published by the Daily Mail on Wednesday, was reportedly taken in April 2017 when the family celebrated the 80th birthday of the president’s sister, Maryanne, just months after he was inaugurated. Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist who describes her uncle as a “sociopath” in her unflattering new tell-all, can be seen wearing a black dress and holding a black handbag on her lap as she smiles for the camera. A picture of her grandfather, Fred Trump, a man she also claims to despise, can be seen over her right shoulder. The president’s only niece, 55, is airing the famous family’s dirty laundry in “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” in which she describes Donald Trump as a broken and deeply scared individual who was damaged by an abusive relationship with his father. In the book, she describes her uncle as a “monster” and recalls how she decided to “take Donald down” by supplying his tax documents to the New York Times. The family tried to block the release of the Simon & Schuster book, claiming it broke the terms of a decades-old nondisclosure agreement Mary Trump signed following a dispute over Fred Trump Sr.’s estate. However, a New York court ruled against the Trump family and the tell-all tome will be released next Tuesday, July 14. The White House denounced the memoir on Tuesday as a “book of falsehoods.”

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Title: Lt. Col. Vindman to retire after 21 years in US Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who testified before a House committee investigating President Trump’s call to Ukraine, is ending his 21-year career with the US Army, his lawyer said Wednesday. Vindman has been the target of “bullying, intimidation, and retaliation” by the president and his allies after he testified before the House Intelligence Committee last November, his attorney David Pressman said in a statement to CNN. Pressman claimed Trump forced Vindman to make a choice: “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.” Pressman said in the statement no one should be faced with those choices, “especially one who has dedicated his life to serving it,” noting that Vindman “did what the law compelled him to do; and for that he was bullied by the President and his proxies.” Vindman, who was awarded the Purple Heart while serving in Iraq, testified that he listened to Trump’s July 2019 phone call with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky as part of his role as the Ukraine expert on the National Security Council. Trump asked Zelensky to launch an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter over their dealings in Ukraine. Vindman said he found Trump’s comments on the call “inappropriate” and was bound by a “sense of duty” to report them up the chain of command. Trump fired Vindman from his White House post in February. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), who is reportedly on the short-list of Biden running mates, said last week that she would block Senate confirmation of military promotions until she was assured by Defense Secretary Mark Esper that Vindman’s promotion to full colonel would not be blocked.

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Title: Florida resident kills man and his daughter over a dog dispute: report An 82-year-old Florida man whose dog was declared by a court to be dangerous gunned down a father and his 11-year-old girl before being shot dead in a gunfight with cops, according to a report. The feud in Port St. Lucie between Ronald Delserro and his neighbor went back to March 4, when his bull mastiff, Toro, bit a woman who lived at the victims’ home, WPTV reported. The incident led to a court hearing in which the animal was declared dangerous, according to the news outlet. “They all came home from court and then the suspect armed himself and went to the victim’s house,” St. Lucie County Sheriff Ken Mascara said at a press conference. When police arrived at the scene on SE Morningside Boulevard on Monday, they entered the home and encountered Delserro, who was armed with two pistols, according to the report. An officer was shot in the arm during the firefight. He was treated at a hospital and later released. SWAT team officers found Delserro dead, according to police, though it was unclear how he died. Also found dead were Guy Alexander Hansmann, 55, and his daughter, Harper Hansmann, 11, who had actually called 911 moments before her death, WPTV reported. “I believe this to be an intentional act of violence against these neighbors,” Assistant Police Chief Richard DelToro said Monday. “It’s tragic. You can’t rationalize irrational behavior.” A contractor told the news outlet that he saw the gunman’s wife just before the shots rang out. “She said, ‘I hope he didn’t do something stupid,'” Ray Layfield told WPTV. The police investigation continues.

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Title: Harvard, MIT sue Trump administration over student visa policy Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have filed suit to block a new Trump administration policy that would force foreign students taking online-only courses this fall to return home, according to a report. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a directive Monday for F-1 visa-holding students to return to their home countries if they are enrolled in an online-only course load, CNN reported. In March, ICE made an exception to an existing rule that students with these visas must attend classes in person and said the allowance would be in effect throughout the pandemic. Now, “ICE’s action leaves hundreds of thousands of international students with no educational options within the United States,” the Massachusetts federal lawsuit from Wednesday alleges. “Just weeks from the start of the fall semester, these students are largely unable to transfer to universities providing on-campus instruction, notwithstanding ICE’s suggestion that they might do so to avoid removal from the country.” And for those students who do return home, taking online courses will be “impossible, impracticable, prohibitively expensive, and/or dangerous,” the court papers say. The move comes after the two prestigious universities said they carefully planned for months to offer most of their classes online “in reliance on ICE’s recognition that the COVID-19 pandemic compelled allowing international students to remain in the country even if their studies had been moved entirely online,” the court documents say. The schools say the order appears to be an “effort by the federal government to force universities to reopen in-person classes … notwithstanding the universities’ judgment that it is neither safe nor educationally advisable to do so,” the court documents say. “The effect — and perhaps even the goal — is to create as much chaos for universities and international students as possible,” the suit charges. “The order came down without notice — its cruelty surpassed only by its recklessness. It appears that it was designed purposefully to place pressure on colleges and universities to open their on-campus classrooms for in-person instruction this fall, without regard to concerns for the health and safety of students, instructors, and others,” Harvard University president Larry Bacow said, according to the outlet. The universities are asking a judge to intervene and set aside the new rule, saying that it violates the Administrative Procedures Act. Big Apple schools are also scrambling after Monday’s decision, according to one New York University professor who told The Post that students and staff alike are panicking because the school has such a high percentage of foreign students. The students “have leases on apartments, some of them are afraid if they go back to China, they won’t be allowed back in so they feel stuck financially and they don’t know what is going to happen,” the professor said, noting there is additional uncertainty about what to do since everyone is wondering whether the lawsuits to block the decision will succeed. And because many of NYU’s students are from Asia, when classes are beginning each day at 9 a.m. in New York, it would be 10 p.m. in Japan or Korea, for example, the teacher said. “People would be taking [online] classes at 2 o’clock, 3 o’clock, 4 o’clock in the morning because of the time change,” the professor explained. The professor and other staff “are afraid we will have no students and no jobs because such a high percentage of our students are foreign-born,” the teacher said. ICE — which is named as a defendant along with the Department of Homeland Security — declined to comment.

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Title: 'Underworld' prison with torture chambers discovered in Dutch town Dutch police said they discovered a twisted, underworld prison with soundproof torture chambers to stifle prisoners’ screams. The operation uncovered seven shipping containers converted into prison cells and torture chambers during a warehouse raid in Wouwse Plantage, a village close to the southern border with Belgium, on June 22. Video released by the police showed heavily armed officers blasting open a door at the warehouse, then opening the containers one by one. “Six of the containers were intended as cells in which people could be tied up and one container was intended as a torture chamber,” said Andy Kraag, head of the police’s National Investigation Service. Inside the containers were possible torture devices including hedge cutters, scalpels and pliers, authorities said. There were also handcuffs attached to the ceilings and floors of the cells, which could be monitored remotely on a video feed. Police said they had been tipped off to the secret chambers by messages on the encrypted app EncroChat that contained photos of a dentist’s chair with belts attached to the arm and foot supports. The messages referred to the warehouse as “treatment room” and the “ebi,” a top-security Dutch prison, authorities said. Police arrested six men on suspicion of kidnapping and hostage-taking in connection to the underground prison. They were ordered held for 90 days as investigations continue. Authorities also confiscated 52 pounds of the drug MDMA, police clothing, stolen vehicles and weapons. With Post wires

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Title: UC Berkeley students plan to skirt ICE rules with fake course for foreign classmates Hundreds of students at the University of California at Berkeley are privately discussing a plan to create a “dummy” course. The bogus class is allegedly being designed solely to help international students on F-1 student visas avoid deportation under new US. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) regulations — and the students claim at least one faculty member is on board, Fox News has learned. The plan, which would likely afoul of laws against immigration fraud if enacted, was reportedly hatched hours after ICE announced Monday that foreign students in the US are required to take some in-person instruction or they will not be allowed to legally remain in the country. “Berkeley students are creating a 1-unit, in-person, student-run class to help international students avoid deportation due to the new ICE regulations,” a Berkeley Urban Studies student wrote in a now-deleted tweet, which has been archived by Google. “love my school sometimes.” The tweet, which was shared more than 25,000 times before it was taken down, linked to a longer post stating that a member of the UC Berkeley community had “found a faculty member who will sponser [sic] this.” The post noted that a syllabus was being drafted and that the course was “ONLY for students who are international and need a physical component to remain in the United States.” The longer post has been shared hundreds of times on various UC Berkeley-related social media groups, including several that are publicly available. Academics with ties to UC Berkeley, including Deborah Miranda, have spread news of the course on their own Facebook accounts. (Miranda falsely said in a post that the ICE regulations would affect “Dreamers”; they would in fact affect students with F-1 visas.) However, some students noted that the plan might not work.

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Title: Jackson, Mississippi votes to remove statue of Andrew Jackson A Mississippi city named after President Andrew Jackson will remove a statue of him amid renewed criticism of his legacy. The city council in Jackson voted 5-1 Tuesday to relocate the bronze figure of its namesake from its perch outside City Hall grounds. Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba said the move will help the state capital “divorce” itself from “the legacy of a brutal owner of enslaved people who was instrumental in initiating the Trail of Tears against indigenous people.” “While removing a statue does little to change our condition as oppressed people, we should not have to constantly encounter the likenesses of those who profited off of the blood, sweat, & despair of our ancestors or see them immortalized as honorable,” the mayor wrote on Twitter. No decisions have been made about when or where to move the statue, which was created in 1968. But City Councilwoman Virgi Lindsay suggested it could be moved to a museum. The city’s decision comes amid calls across the country to take down statues honoring slave owners or people with racist histories. The only dissenting vote Tuesday came from Councilman Ashby Foote, the sole Republican member, who said “the whole idea of tearing down historical statues and monuments is generally a bad idea,” the Clarion-Ledger reported. With Post wires

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Title: PA constable suspended for 'despicable' racist online posts A Pennsylvania judge suspended a constable Wednesday over a series of “despicable” Facebook posts calling for a “race war” and characterizing Black Lives Matter protesters as terrorists. Pete Dardas — a Berks County constable since 2009 — was suspended indefinitely by a judge just two days after District Attorney John Adams learned of the “despicable racist rhetoric” on his personal Facebook page, the DA told The Post. Dardas, whose profile was no longer available Wednesday, made a series of troubling posts dating back to at least mid-June, including some that encouraged a “civil/race war” and called for the removal of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in Washington. Dardas also complained that people were getting fired from jobs because they disagreed with Black Lives Matter demonstrators, according to screenshots circulating online. “The minute you say that people jump all over your ass, so I guess I’ll say this black lives don’t matter anymore than white lives,” Dardas wrote. In another post from late last month, Dardas urged armed Americans to “take back our streets” from protesters, whom he characterized as “thugs,” and called for a “black history museum” to be burned to the ground, screenshots show. Adams said he expects Dardas to resign “in the very near future” while noting that the suspension was effective immediately. Dardas has admitted putting up the offending posts, Adams said. “The posts from his Facebook page were despicable racist rhetoric,” he said. “They should never, ever have been posted.” Constables in Berks County can perform duties including making summary arrests and transporting defendants to court, as well as working at polls, Adams said. But aside from working at county polls as recently as 2018, Dardas has not “performed any constable services at all,” Adams told The Post. “I can only hope that people are learning that this type of rhetoric is completely inappropriate to be posted on a public forum,” Adams said. “I hope people think before they type.” Dardas, whose current term is set to run through 2021, ran as a Republican in 2009. He was re-elected to another six-year term in 2015, the Reading Eagle reports.

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Title: DNC releases memo blasting Facebook for 'unkept promises' The DNC is calling out Facebook for its “unkept promises, uneven policies,” over the tech behemoth’s stated commitment to combating disinformation on its platform. In a memo released Tuesday, the Democratic National Committee chastised the social media giant for allegedly breaking its promises to limit sensationalist and polarizing content, as well as falling short on its plea to implement an adequate fact-checking program. The lengthy memo also admonished Facebook for its “underdeveloped and unevenly applied policies,” which the DNC claims allowed President Trump to publish posts that spread disinformation and incite violence. “… As Facebook was making this public commitment to stop incentivising [sic] disinformation, the company was privately doing the opposite. The company’s internal ‘Common Ground’ team had found that disinformation and hyperpolarization came ‘disproportionately from a small pool of hyperpartisan users’ whose reach was amplified by the platform; and, further, that a disproportionately larger number of these voices came from the far right. The ‘Common Ground’ team proposed that these purveyors of disinformation no longer should be amplified by Facebook’s algorithm,” the memo said. “In response, rather than adopting that reform, Facebook rejected it and disbanded the team.” The DNC’s accusations of disinformation on the platform center around Trump’s posts that raised concern about the viability of mail-in voting, such as posts declaring that “MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WILL BE PRINTED BY FOREIGN COUNTRIES” and that “mailboxes will be robbed.” The memo said the posts lie about methods of voting, and that Facebook should have removed them. The Democrats’ memo also said Facebook should have removed Trump’s infamous post that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” because it incites violence. “Rather than enforcing its clear policies against such content, Facebook chose to allow the post to stay up — calling the White House to so inform them, rather than adhering to its clear policy,” the DNC wrote. They also called for stricter rules surrounding false political ads, and said there are too many delays in the fact-checking process, which allows misinformation to stay unchecked on the site for days. In the company’s defense, Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said it has worked hard to fight misinformation. “Since 2016, Facebook has worked to secure our platforms from interference, tripled the number of people working on safety and security, and added political advertising transparency and controls, all while fighting misinformation with the help of an unmatched global network of over 70 fact-checking organizations including 10 in the U.S.,” Stone said.

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Title: Joe Biden says he wants schools to reopen this fall, but ‘safely’ Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden “of course” wants schools to reopen this fall, a Biden campaign official tells The Post. The comments come as Biden’s 2020 rival, President Trump, has begun promising to turn up the heat on US governors to reopen public schools in the fall. “Of course he does,” the Team Biden source said when asked if the former vice president hoped schools would be able to return in the fall. “That’s why he’s been making these proposals and pressing Trump to act. But we need to ensure we can do it safely, in line with the recommendations of public health experts, and Trump keeps failing us on that score,” they added. Speaking from the White House on Tuesday, the commander-in-chief was adamant in his pledge that students would return to in-person classes in the fall. “We’re very much going to put pressure on governors and everybody else to open the schools, to get them open. It’s very important,” he said at a White House event on school reopenings. “So we are going to be putting a lot of pressure on [governors] to open your schools in the fall,” he continued. Biden campaign spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement on Trump’s efforts, “Almost a month ago, Joe Biden called out Donald Trump for failing to do the work to help our schools reopen safely and effectively — and laid out clear steps that would give schools the guidance, resources, and support they need to do so. Almost two months ago, Biden was advocating for badly-needed relief to our states and cities so that they could pay teachers, but Trump and Senate Republicans are still stalling on that.” Biden’s schools reopening plan includes significantly scaled-up funding for PPE and “enhanced sanitation efforts” for child care providers and schools — particularly Title I schools. Speaking Friday during a virtual fundraiser with the National Education Association, Biden predicted schools would likely use distance learning “for a while longer,” before echoing the teachers union’s call for more money for safety measures.

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Title: Russia digs trench around village to enforce quarantine A Siberian village is conducting trench warfare against the coronavirus. Russian authorities dug two ditches around Shuluta, which has 37 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among its 390 residents, to prevent those skeptical about an order to self-isolate from venturing out. Local officials believe the bug was spread throughout the village — located some 20 miles east of Lake Baikal — during a traditional shaman ritual performed by an infected woman on June 10. Administrative chief Ivan Alkheyev said 95 other people are believed to have been in contact with those infected and are also required to remain under quarantine. “I don’t believe it! There should at least be symptoms and I don’t have any,” local resident Engelsina Shaboyeva, who has tested positive for the bug, told a TV station. Another resident, Svetlana Shaglanova, whose husband died after a stroke and was said to have tested positive, said she did not agree that he also caught the virus. “They put that he died of the virus on the papers, but it is not true, it was just a stroke,” she said. The trenches that encircle Shuluta were dug on June 29 also as a means of preventing potentially infected outsiders from driving through the village to nearby Tunka National Park. The only accessible road to the village is now patrolled by local officials and Russian troops who allow only ambulances and food deliveries through. Meanwhile, Russian consumer safety watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said anyone who performed a shaman ritual despite a ban on public events could face a fine. The Republic of Buryatia, where Shuluta is located, had registered 3,141 cases of the coronavirus as of Monday, according to the Moscow Times. Russia’s official case tally, the fourth largest in the world, has topped 687,000. With Post wires

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Title: Kanye West details 2020 presidential platform: Wakanda, God, and China Billionaire rapper and business mogul Kanye West vaguely outlined a preliminary campaign platform in an interview with Forbes Wednesday, after revealing in a July 4th tweet that he would be running for president. Announcing his presidential candidacy, West tweeted, “We must now realize the promise of America by trusting God, unifying our vision and building our future. I am running for president of the United States! #2020VISION.” As for his platform, West is clear on some issues and still developing his positions on others. With regard to developing policies, the musician rejected the idea of having policies as potentially restrictive. “I don’t know if I would use the word policy for the way I would approach things. I don’t have a policy, when I went to Nike and designed Yeezy and went to Louis and designed a Louis Vuitton at the same time. It wasn’t a policy, it was a design. We need to innovate the design to be able to free the mind at this time,” he told the magazine. He went on to discuss the superhero movie “Black Panther” and its fictional kingdom of Wakanda. West said he would frame his vision for his administration off the box office blockbuster. “A lot of Africans do not like the movie and representation of themselves in … Wakanda. But I’m gonna use the framework of Wakanda right now because it’s the best explanation of what our design group is going to feel like in the White House. “That is a positive idea: You got Kanye West, one of the most powerful humans — I’m not saying the most because you got a lot of alien level superpowers and it’s only collectively that we can set it free … In the movie, in Wakanda when the king went to visit that lead scientist to have the shoes wrap around her shoes. Just the amount of innovation that can happen, the amount of innovation in medicine — like big pharma — we are going to work, innovate, together,” he said. “This is not going to be some Nipsey Hussle being murdered, they’re doing a documentary, we have so many soldiers that die for our freedom, our freedom of information, that there is a cure for AIDS out there, there is going to be a mix of big pharma and holistic,” the sneaker mogul continued. Asked about foreign policy, West said, “I haven’t developed it yet. I’m focused on protecting America, first, with our great military. Let’s focus on ourselves first.” The presidential hopeful also said he still has work to do on his tax policy. “I haven’t done enough research on that yet,” West admitted. “I will research that with the strongest experts that serve God and come back with the best solution. And that will be my answer for anything that I haven’t researched. I have the earplug in and I’m going to use that earplug.” West said he was pro-life “because I’m following the word of the Bible,” and against capital punishment. “Thou shalt not kill. I’m against the death penalty,” he said. West also said he supports reinstating prayer in schools, saying, “Reinstate in God’s state, in God’s country, the fear and love of God in all schools and organizations and you chill the fear and love of everything else. So that was a plan by the Devil to have our kids committing suicide at an all-time high by removing God to have murders in Chicago at an all-time high, because the human beings working for the Devil removed God and prayer from the schools. That means more drugs, more murders, more suicide.” In a stark contrast to both President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, West embraced China amid heightened tensions between the US and the Communist country. “When I become president, let me make some promises, the NBA will open all the way back up from Nigeria to Nanchang and the world will see the greatest athletes play. The world will experience the change in their element. The money is gonna come back. “I love China. I love China. It’s not China’s fault that disease. It’s not the Chinese people’s fault. They’re God’s people also. I love China. It changed my life. It changed my perspective, it gave me such a wide perspective. My mom as an English professor taught English in China when I was in 5th grade,” the rapper told the outlet. Asked about racial tensions in the wake of the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man killed by a white Minneapolis police officer, West said he was committed to ending police brutality, but decried calling all police officers bad. “One of my to-do lists is to end police brutality. The police are people too. To end laws that don’t make sense. Like, in the George Floyd case, there was a Black guy that went to jail and it was his first day on the force. So if it’s your first day on the force and it’s your training day, and this OG accredited cop with 18 violations already starts filing out, are you going to jump in front of that person and lose your job that same day? Especially in this climate when 40,000 people lost their jobs? This man was put in a position where — and also he probably didn’t realize that the cop was going to take it that far, he probably was so scared, in shock, paralyzed, like so many Black people. I’m one of the few Black people that would speak openly like this.” West went on to describe a reimagining of how Americans interact with their societal institutions. “The schools, the infrastructure was made for us to not truly be all we can be but to be just good enough to work for the corporations that designed the school systems. We’re tearing that up, what we’ll do is we’re not going to tear up the Constitution, what we will do is amend,” he told Forbes.

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Title: Hong Kong bans protest anthem in schools as fears over freedoms intensify HONG KONG – Hong Kong authorities on Wednesday banned school students from singing of “Glory to Hong Kong,” the unofficial anthem of the pro-democracy protest movement, just hours after Beijing set up its new national security bureau in the Chinese-ruled city. New security legislation imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing requires the Asian financial hub to “promote national security education in schools and universities and through social organizations, the media, the internet.” The school anthem ban will further stoked concerns that new security laws will crush freedoms in China’s freest city, days after public libraries removed books by some prominent pro-democracy figures from their shelves. Authorities also banned protest slogans as the new laws came into force last week. The sweeping legislation that Beijing imposed on the former British colony punishes what China defines as secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces, with up to life in prison. Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung, responding to a question from a lawmaker, said students should not participate in class boycotts, chant slogans, form human chains or sing songs that contain political messages. “The song ‘Glory to Hong Kong’, originated from the social incidents since June last year, contains strong political messages and is closely related to the social and political incidents, violence and illegal incidents that have lasted for months,” Yeung said. “Schools must not allow students to play, sing or broadcast it in schools.” Earlier on Wednesday, China opened its new national security office, turning a hotel near a city-center park that has been one of the most popular venues for pro-democracy protests into its new headquarters. Both Hong Kong and Chinese government officials have said the new law is vital to plug gaping holes in national security defenses exposed by the anti-government and anti-China protests that rocked the city in the past year. They have argued the city failed to pass such laws by itself as required under its mini-constitution, known as the Basic Law. Critics of the law see it as a tool to crush dissent, while supporters say it will bring stability to the city. In a statement last month, China’s Hong Kong Liaison Office, Beijing’s top representative office in the city, blamed political groups “with ulterior motives” for “shocking chaos in Hong Kong education.

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Title: 'Absolutely essential' for schools to reopen in fall: Pence Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday it was “absolutely essential” that schools reopen in the fall so that children can get back in the classroom. “What we heard yesterday from education officials and what we heard from the American Academy of Pediatrics, it is absolutely essential that we get our kids back in the classroom for in-person learning,” Pence said during a coronavirus task force briefing at the Department of Education, referring to a forum in the East Room Tuesday. “We cannot let our kids fall behind academically. But it is important that the American people remember that for children that have mental health issues, for special-needs children, for nutrition, for children in communities facing persistent poverty, that school is the place where they receive all of those services,” the veep continued. “This is not simply about making sure our kids are learning and advancing academically, but for their mental health, for their well-being, or their physical health, have to get our kids back to school.” He also said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would be issuing guidelines for safe school reopenings next week. His comment came after President Trump trashed the CDC guidelines, but it was unclear if the ones coming next week would differ from those currently available. But Pence stressed that the CDC guidelines were not mandates and that it was up to the states to ultimately decide how to proceed. “We’re here to help,” he said. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos echoed Pence’s message that it was up to the states to decide how to safely reopen. “It’s not a matter of if, it’s simply a matter of how. Schools must fully open and be fully operational and how that happens is best left to education and community leaders,” she said. CDC chief Robert Redfield defended the existing guidelines as tools to help states reopen their schools — not roadblocks to prevent reopening. “First and foremost, I want to make it very clear that the guidance the CDC put out is intentional for reopening and keeping our schools open. That is its purpose,” he said. “We recognize that there is a variety of unique circumstances with different school districts and so we have outlined a number of strategies that those schools and administrators can use to accomplish this goal safely,” he continued. “But I want to make it very clear that what is not part of the CDC guidelines is to be used as a rationale to keep schools closed. We are prepared to work with each school, each jurisdiction to help them use the different strategies we have proposed so they come up with the optimal strategy for those schools.” Asked whether the CDC would change the guidelines following Trump’s criticism, Redfield did not answer directly but said the guidelines were often changed to reflect new data, a point echoed by Pence. “As the president said today, we just don’t want the guidance to be too tough. That’s why the CDC will be issuing more guidance going forward,” he said. Dr. Deborah Birx was asked about the vice president’s contention that children rarely contract the virus, which has killed more than 133,000 Americans in roughly four months, she replied that health officials don’t know what the infection rate is among younger children because so few have been tested. “It really comes to the evidence base of what we have in testing in children. If you look across all the tests we have done, the portion that has been the lowest tested portion is the under 10-years-old,” she said, adding that the percentage of people under age 25 who have died from the virus was extremely low. The president had also threatened earlier Wednesday to withhold federal funding for schools from states that don’t reopen quickly — and the vice president alluded to what that could look like. “As we work with Congress on the next round of state support, we’re going to be looking for ways to give states a strong incentive and encouragement to get kids back to school,” he said. Trump had warned at Tuesday’s forum that he would put pressure on governors who don’t reopen schools, and accused them of playing politics in an effort to hurt his reelection chances.

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Title: Feds investigating TikTok over children's privacy issues: report The feds are investigating the popular app TikTok to determine if it failed to comply with a 2019 agreement aimed at protecting children’s privacy, according to a report. TikTok has been under scrutiny, including from the national security-focused Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, largely because it is Chinese-owned at a time of heightened tensions between the world’s two largest economies, Reuters reported Tuesday. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday that the US was “certainly looking at” banning TikTok, suggesting it shared information with the Chinese Communist government, a charge the company denies. A staffer in a Massachusetts tech policy group and another source told the news service they took part in separate conference calls with Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department officials to discuss accusations that TikTok had failed to live up to an agreement announced in February 2019. The Center for Digital Democracy, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and others in May asked the FTC to look into their allegations that TikTok failed to delete videos and personal information about users age 13 and younger as it had agreed to do, among other violations. A spokesman for TikTok, which is widely popular with young people, said they take “safety seriously for all our users,” adding that in the US, they “accommodate users under 13 in a limited app experience that introduces additional safety and privacy protections designed specifically for a younger audience.” Officials from both the FTC, which reached the original consent agreement with TikTok, and Justice Department, which often files court documents for the FTC, met via video with representatives of the groups to discuss the matter, said David Monahan, a campaign manager with the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. “I got the sense from our conversation that they are looking into the assertions that we raised in our complaint,” Monahan said. The FTC declined to comment. The Justice Department had no immediate comment. TikTok has grown increasingly popular among teenagers and allows users to create short videos. About 60 percent of TikTok’s 26.5 million monthly active users in the US are ages 16 to 24, the company said last year. Lawmakers have also raised national security concerns over TikTok’s handling of user data, saying they were worried about Chinese laws requiring that domestic companies support and cooperate with the Chinese Communist Party, according to the report. TikTok, owned by parent company ByteDance, is one of several China-based firms that have had to navigate escalating US-China tensions over trade, technology and the COVID-19 pandemic, which President Trump has repeatedly blamed on China, where it originated. With Reuters

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Title: San Francisco official introduces CAREN Act to stop racist 911 calls A San Francisco city official is taking aim at so-called “Karens” — by introducing an ordinance making it illegal to make bogus “racially biased” calls to cops. Supervisor Shamann Walton said he introduced the CAREN Act — or the Caution Against Racially Exploitative Non-Emergencies Act — during Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting in response to several high-profile 911 calls involving people of color. “This is the CAREN we need,” Walton tweeted Tuesday, adding that “racist 911 calls” are unacceptable. The ordinance would amend San Francisco Police Code to make it unlawful for anyone to “fabricate false racially-biased emergency reports,” the San Francisco Chronicle reports, citing a news release from Walton. The legislation seeks to “protect the rights of communities of color” who are victimized by “fraudulent emergency calls,” Walton said in a statement. The name of the ordinance is a clear reference to “Karen,” a slang term popularized on social media for entitled, or bigoted white women who unnecessarily call police on people of color. Walton noted several local examples while announcing the ordinance, including a white couple who called police on a Filipino man stenciling “Black Lives Matter” in front of his San Francisco home in June, the Mercury News reports. Police in Alameda have also appointed an outside investigator after someone called cops on a black man in late May who was dancing and exercising outside, Walton said. Meanwhile, in New York, Amy Cooper, a 41-year-old white woman who called cops on a black man as he watched birds in Central Park in May, was charged Monday with falsely reporting an incident in the third degree. The ordinance comes after similar proposed state legislation in June to end discriminatory police calls by classifying them as hate crimes, the Chronicle reports. If passed, Walton’s ordinance would allow victims to seek civil remedy in court, his chief of staff told Forbes. Making a false report to police is already a crime, but there’s no punishment for someone who calls cops due to a perceived threat based on someone’s race, religion or appearance, according to state Assemblyman Rob Bonta (D-Oakland). “If you are afraid of a black family barbecuing in the community park, a man dancing and doing his normal exercise routine in the bike lane, or someone who asks you to comply with dog leash laws in a park, and your immediate response is to call the police, the real problem is with your own personal prejudice,” Bonta told the Chronicle. Under Bonta’s proposed bill, anyone victimized by a discriminatory and fraudulent call to cops could sue the caller for up to $10,000, the Chronicle reports.

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Title: University of Toledo football player fatally shot at pizzeria A football player for Ohio’s University of Toledo was fatally gunned down outside a pizza joint — and the shooter remains at large. Jahneil Douglas, 22, a defensive lineman on the Toledo Rockets, was shot outside Gino’s Pizza in the city’s downtown around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, local media reported. Police say there was a fight outside the eatery between two men when shots rang out, WTOL reported. Douglas was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he later died. No arrests were immediately made. The 6-foot-3 football player was in his junior year at the college and majored in communication studies, according to WTVG. Rockets head coach Jason Candle said in a statement that the team is “heartbroken” by the news. “The Toledo Football family is heartbroken by the loss of Jahneil,” Candle said. “He was a hard-working young man who was loved by all his teammates and coaches,” said Candle. “Our sincerest condolences go out to Jahneil’s family and friends during these difficult times. Jahneil will forever be a part of the Rocket Football family.” Mike O’Brien, the university’s director of athletics, said, “We were all shocked to learn of the tragic death of Jahneil Douglas.”

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Title: WHO acknowledges 'evidence emerging' of airborne spread of COVID-19 The World Health Organization acknowledges there is “evidence emerging” of the airborne spread of the coronavirus — after a group of more than 200 scientists urged the UN agency to update its guidance on how the respiratory illness passes between people. “We have been talking about the possibility of airborne transmission and aerosol transmission as one of the modes of transmission of COVID-19,” Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on the pandemic, said Tuesday, Reuters reported. The Geneva-based agency previously said the bug spreads primarily through small droplets expelled from the nose and mouth of an infected person that quickly sink to the ground. But in an open letter to the WHO, published Monday in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal, 239 scientists from 32 countries outlined evidence they said shows floating viral particles can infect people who inhale them. Because those smaller particles can linger in the air, the scientists had urged the agency to update its guidance. “We wanted them to acknowledge the evidence,” said University of Colorado chemist Jose Jimenez, who signed the paper. “This is definitely not an attack on the WHO. It’s a scientific debate, but we felt we needed to go public because they were refusing to hear the evidence after many conversations with them,” he told Reuters. Benedetta Allegranzi, the WHO’s technical lead for infection prevention and control, said Tuesday that evidence was emerging of airborne transmission of the disease — but noted that it was not definitive. “The possibility of airborne transmission in public settings — especially in very specific conditions, crowded, closed, poorly ventilated settings that have been described — cannot be ruled out,” she said. “However, the evidence needs to be gathered and interpreted, and we continue to support this.” Jimenez said there has been strong opposition historically in the medical profession to the idea of aerosol transmission, citing a fear of panic as a main concern. “If people hear airborne, health-care workers will refuse to go to the hospital,” he told Reuters, adding that people would buy all the highly protective N95 respirator masks, “and there will be none left for developing countries.” He added that the agency’s panel examining the evidence on airborne transmission was not scientifically diverse, and lacked representation from experts in aerosol transmission. Any change in the agency’s assessment of risk of transmission could affect its advice on keeping 3.3 feet of physical distancing, according to Reuters. Van Kerkhove said the WHO would soon be publishing a scientific brief summarizing the state of knowledge on modes of transmission. “A comprehensive package of interventions is required to be able to stop transmission,” she said. “This includes not only physical distancing, it includes the use of masks where appropriate in certain settings, specifically where you can’t do physical distancing and especially for health-care workers.” On Tuesday, the Trump administration officially withdrew the US from the WHO, a senior administration official told The Post.

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Title: Suspect in California doctor's killing identified as wanted felon The suspect who shot and killed a California doctor on an off-roading trip with his son was a wanted felon, authorities said. John Conway of Orville allegedly opened fire as Dr. Ari Gershman, 45, and his 15-year-old son drove a new Jeep Friday near Downieville, according to the Sierra County Sheriff’s Office. At the time of the shooting, Conway, 40, was wanted on felony charges of vandalism, battery and making terroristic threats, news station KNVN reported. Officers discovered Gershman dead but weren’t immediately able to locate his son, who had become lost when he fled into the Tahoe National Forest, the report said. The teen was on his own for 30 hours, spending the night in the wilderness before officers tracked him down, the station reported. Shortly after police located the son, Conway approached two officers on his ATV and tried to run them over, authorities said. Conway led authorities on a chase, which ended in a collision and an officer-involved shooting, the report said. He was arrested and brought to the hospital for medical treatment, the outlet reported. He appeared to be on a shooting rampage, injuring two other people in the area before the doctor’s slaying, authorities said. None of the victims knew Conway and authorities said the carnage appears to be a random act of violence, authorities said. The sheriff’s office said more charges will be announced soon.

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Title: Video of Schenectady cop kneeling on man’s neck sparks outrage Disturbing video has emerged of a Schenectady cop punching a man and kneeling on his neck during a violent altercation that drew comparisons to the Minneapolis police arrest of George Floyd, who died after being unable to breathe, according to a report. Yugeshwar Gaindarpersaud, 31, a member of the upstate city’s Guyanese community, told the Daily Gazette that he was stopped Monday by police investigating a report that his neighbor’s tires had been slashed. He said he told the unidentified officer to provide evidence and began walking away. “Put your hands behind your back!” the cop orders as he pulls out a pair of handcuffs, according to the footage shot by the man’s father, Jaindra, who was ordered to move back during the encounter. “Put your hands behind your [expletive] back!” the officer yells as he lifts Yugeshwar’s leg and begins punching him in the torso as he appears not to move. As the officer delivers the blows, his father and wife yell in protest. “You got the foot on his head!” Jaindra shouts. “You’ve got the foot on his head!” The father told the Gazette: “He stopped breathing and he was not moving and when he pinned him to the ground, he was not moving anymore, so I said, ‘He’s going to die just like George Floyd.’” Yugeshwar said the officer’s “whole body weight was smashing my head into the concrete. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t move.” Two additional officers finally show up and place him in handcuffs. Only then does the first cop remove his knee from Gaindarpersaud’s neck area. After being placed in a police car, he said, he blacked out. “When I woke up, I was in Ellis Hospital,” Gaindarpersaud, who was charged with disorderly conduct, told the newspaper, displaying abrasions on his face, leg and arm. On Tuesday, Police Chief Eric Clifford defended the officer’s actions, saying Gaindarpersaud was resisting arrest “both actively and passively” and was ignoring orders. “The goal of law enforcement during a combative encounter should be to gain control of the subject, situation and achieve custody without causing injury,” Clifford said, according to the Gazette. “At no time did the officer attempt to impair Mr. Gaindarpersaud’s breathing or blood circulation. The officer was alone and attempting to gain control of the continually struggling Mr. Gaindarpersaud,” he added. In an executive order last month, Schenectady banned knee-to-neck holds along with chokeholds — but Clifford disputed that the officer’s knee was on the suspect’s neck. “This officer briefly placed his knee on Mr. Gaindarpersaud’s head to maintain control of the subject while calling for help and giving repeated commands to Mr. Gaindarpersaud’s family to back up,” Clifford said. “The officer holds the head of Mr. Gaindarpersaud to the ground only as long as necessary to get him handcuffed and immediately releases it once backup officers arrive,” he said. Clifford also disputed that Gaindarpersaud lost consciousness. “Upon arrival at police headquarters, Mr. Gaindarpersaud was conscious and immediately evaluated by Schenectady Fire Department paramedics, then transported to Ellis Hospital for treatment,” he said. The cop’s actions sparked a backlash from the city’s branch of the NAACP and activist group All of Us, which said the arrest was strikingly similar to the events that eventually led to Floyd’s death on May 25. City Councilwoman Marion Porterfield, a member of the Schenectady NAACP, called the officer’s actions “excessive,” but stopped short of calling for his firing. “Perhaps discipline is needed, and review of tactics and training when it comes to interacting with the public,” Porterfield told the Gazette. Gaindarpersaud, meanwhile, told the Gazette that he plans to press charges against the officer but hadn’t yet consulted with a lawyer.

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Title: Oregon politician confesses to writing racist letter to himself An Oregon politician has confessed to penning a racist letter to himself after he initially claimed it was anonymously sent to him, authorities said. Jonathan Lopez, who is Latino and was a recent candidate for Umatilla County commissioner, claimed he discovered the hate-filled missive in his mailbox on June 23, the East Oregonian reported. On his now-deleted Facebook account, he shared a photo of the letter, which said that Lopez and other “Mexicans” were “not welcome here,” according to local news station KEPR-TV. “Don’t waste your time trying to become anything in this county we will make sure you never win and your family suffers along with all the other f–king Mexicans in the area!” the letter said. Lopez wrote in the post that he “holds no resentment for whomever wrote this,” the outlet reported. “I’m just simply heartbroken for the lack of knowledge, education and respect missing,” he said. “I pray for you and wish you prosperity in your life.” But when authorities followed up with Lopez about the alleged incident, he confessed to writing the letter himself. “Our investigation has shown that Mr. Lopez wrote the letter himself and made false statements to the police and on social media,” Hermiston Police Chief Jason Edmiston told the East Oregonian. “The end result is a verbal and written admission by Mr. Lopez that the letter was fabricated.” Edmiston said the case would be forwarded to the Umatilla County District Attorney’s Office for review on charges for initiating a false report. “This investigation is particularly frustrating as we are in the midst of multiple major investigations while battling a resource shortage due to the current pandemic,” Edmiston told the outlet. “The time spent on this fictitious claim means time lost on other matters, not to mention it needlessly adds to the incredible tension that exists in our nation today.” Lopez — who lost a primary election for a seat on the Umatilla County Board of Commissioners in May — claimed he never intended to file a police report about the bogus letter. “I never meant to file a report, it just kind of spiraled out,” Lopez told the newspaper.

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Title: GOP candidate claims he can topple AOC in general election The Republican candidate challenging Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claims he has a real shot at toppling the first-term Democratic socialist firebrand in the general election. The campaign of ex-cop and retired teacher John Cummings said the 14th Congressional District, covering portions of The Bronx and Queens, is populated with practical, working-class voters — not radical leftists like AOC. “A well-funded candidate with an NYPD/education background and deep ties to the district can beat AOC,” reads a campaign strategy memo prepared by Cummings campaign manager Chapin Fay and consultant Corey Vale, under the heading, “Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Re-Election in Jeopardy.” “We have raised over $3.5 million from over 70,000 donors from all 50 states; and we have the candidate and message to contrast with AOC’s radical socialist agenda and unbelievable disconnect from the very voters she claims to represent.” They claim internal polling shows their campaign is “not a vanity exercise” and that AOC, while a well-funded national figure, is “vulnerable” in the district. But Cummings is clearly the underdog and would have to make up ground, the memo’s own survey reveals. An internal poll of 400 voters in the district in May found that 46 percent had a favorable view of the lefty incumbent and 35 percent had an unfavorable view with the rest undecided. Fifty-two percent of respondents said they support her re-election in a district that President Barack Obama carried by 62 points and Hillary Clinton by 57 points against Donald Trump in 2016, the advisers said. “Even in this overwhelmingly Democrat district, voters oppose Socialism,” the Cummings campaign advisers said. Sixty percent of voters called AOC “very liberal” and 38 percent described her as an “out of touch radical,” the Cummings campaign said. Seventy-one percent of voters had a favorable view of the NYPD, but that was before the protests ignited by the brutal death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis. “Yes … John is a moderate Republican running in a solidly blue district. But AOC’s victory is far from certain and her negatives within the district are much higher than expected. Additionally, there has never been a well-funded Moderate Republican candidate running in District 14, let alone a common-sense cop and schoolteacher,” Fay and Vale said. AOC easily defeated business journalist Michelle Caruso-Cabrera in the June 23 Democratic primary and it is widely believed she will easily win re-election. The congresswoman captured 72 percent of the machine tally to 19 percent for her chief rival, followed by two other candidates. Caruso-Cabrera pounded the incumbent for her opposition to Amazon’s scuttled plan to open a headquarters in Queens as well her votes in Congress — but the attacks didn’t resonate. The Cummings campaign believes AOC’s opposition to the Amazon deal will hurt her among more moderate pro-jobs voters in the general election. In response, AOC’s campaign released its own internal poll from May — before her primary victory — to counter Cummings and show that the congresswoman was in good stead with the overwhelming majority of her Democratic constituents. “Attempts to use Democratic Socialism to attack the Congresswoman are also backfiring, as solid majorities of voters in the district have a positive impression of the term. Fully 62% of voters have a favorable opinion of ‘Democratic Socialism,’ including 58% of Latinx voters, 63% of African American voters, and 60% of white voters. Just 21% of voters have an unfavorable impression and roughly 1-in-6 (17%) are unfamiliar with the term or have no opinion on it,” AOC’s campaign memo said. “It is perhaps unsurprising that these broadsides against Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez lack credibility, as fully 71% of voters report that the Congresswoman is doing an excellent or good job staying in touch with the needs of families in the Bronx and Queens. In addition, they register undeniable support—87%—for her constituent services during the COVID-19 pandemic. “”Most voters in this district have made up their mind and are eminently pleased with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as their representative in Congress. The data suggests there is no real pathway for an opponent to make inroads against Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez.”

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Title: Trump threatens to cut funding if schools don't reopen President Trump upped the ante in his push to have schools reopen this fall despite the coronavirus pandemic, threatening to cut off funding for those that don’t. “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!” Trump said in a Twitter post. Speaking at the White House on Tuesday, Trump said he would pressure governors to reopen public schools. “We’re very much going to put pressure on governors and everybody else to open the schools, to get them open. It’s very important,” Trump said at a forum attended by health experts and education officials. The president, moments later Tuesday, wrote in another tweet that he doesn’t agree with guidelines set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for reopening schools. “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!!!,” Trump wrote. The CDC’s guidelines call for schools to stagger schedules, spread out desks, ensure students stay six feet apart and that they have meals in classrooms instead of gathering in cafeterias. The Trump administration has claimed that keeping students at home could hamper their educational development and have long-term effects on their mental health. “Children’s mental health and social development must be as much of a priority as physical health,” first lady Melania Trump said at the White House Tuesday. “The same is true for parents. Many will be forced to make stressful choices between caring for their children and going back to work.” Dr. Robert Redfield, the head of the CDC, said schools must abide by safety precautions to open because young students could transfer the coronavirus to more at-risk populations. “It’s clear that the greater risk to our society is to have these schools close,” Redfield said at another forum Tuesday. “The CDC encourages all schools to do what they need to reopen, and to have plans that anticipate that COVID-19 cases will in fact occur.” Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos pointed to Florida’s reopening plan that requires all public schools to reopen in August for at least five days a week, as some school officials from around the country consider reopening for a few days a week. In a call with governors obtained by the Associated Press, DeVos said reopening a couple days a week “is not a choice at all.” “Students across the country have already fallen behind. We need to make sure that they catch up,” DeVos said. “It’s expected that it will look different depending on where you are, but what’s clear is that students and their families need more options.” With Post wires

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Title: Supreme Court backs religious exemptions from birth control mandate The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld expanded exemptions to the Affordable Care Act’s birth- control mandate for employers with religious or moral objections. The 7-2 vote, with Justice Clarence Thomas writing the majority opinion and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissenting, came in the case of Pennsylvania vs. Little Sisters of the Poor, a Roman Catholic order that had sued over the act’s requirement that employers provide contraceptives with no co-pay to workers. The group said the act violated their religious and moral beliefs. The law allowed for some exemptions for churches and other religious organizations. But after President Trump took office, the feds in 2017 issued a rule to allow exemptions for more employers, including publicly traded companies. Under the rule, private employers could get an exemption for a “sincerely held religious belief.” The Trump administration and the Little Sisters of the Poor had asked the justices to reverse a lower court’s order that blocked the exemptions nationwide. The White House hailed the high court’s decision. “Today’s Supreme Court ruling is a big win for religious freedom and freedom of conscience,“ it said in a statement. “Almost a decade ago, the Obama administration attempted to force employers, including religious nonprofits like the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order of nuns, to provide contraceptive coverage to their employees, in violation of their religious beliefs. “Twice before in this ongoing saga, the Supreme Court has blocked these overly rigid and misguided efforts and sided with religious freedom. Today, it has once again vindicated the conscience rights of people of faith.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripped the ruling. “The Supreme Court’s decision to enable the Trump administration’s brutal assault on women’s health, financial security and independence is a fundamental misreading of the statute,” she said. “The Affordable Care Act was explicitly designed to prevent discrimination against women and to ensure that women have access to preventive care, including contraception.”

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Title: Florida man fired from insurance firm after Costco mask outburst The Florida Costco shopper who went ballistic after an elderly woman asked him to wear a mask is now out of a job. The man – who said he felt threatened and harassed during the June 27 incident that went viral on social media – was identified Tuesday by internet sleuths and later Ted Todd Insurance as Daniel Maples, the Fort Myers News-Press reports. A bio for Maples, who had worked with the insurance agency since 2016, had been removed from the company’s website by midday Tuesday. The bio previously identified Maples as the company’s “highest-producing sales agent” and noted activities he enjoyed in his spare time, including hot yoga, traveling, cooking and “mentoring” others. Company officials confirmed Maples’ termination in a statement Tuesday. “Thank you to everyone for their comments and messages raising awareness about a former employee at Ted Todd Insurance,” the statement read. “Their behavior in the video is in direct conflict with our company values and their employment has been terminated.” The company said it also intends to review its “internal existing culture” in light of the disturbing footage. “Threatening behavior and intimidation go against our core mission to be trusted advisors in our community,” the statement continued. The person who posted the video to Twitter told The Post Tuesday that Maples – who wore a red T-shirt with the words “Running the world since 1776” at the time – yelled at an elderly woman who asked him to put on a mask. A man then stepped in to defend her while citing the number of new coronavirus cases in Florida from the previous day. “You’re harassing me,” Maples said to the man. “I am not harassing you,” the man replied. “I feel threatened,” Maples yelled while walking toward the man. “Back off! Threaten me again! Back the f—k up, put your f—king phone down!” Attempts to reach Maples early Wednesday were unsuccessful.

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Title: Trump administration warns against investing in Chinese firms The Trump administration warned about investing in Chinese companies because of the possibility of sanctions and boycotts over the Chinese Communist Party’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and its strong-arm response to pro-democracy rallies in Hong Kong, according to a report. National security adviser Robert O’Brien and Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, wrote in a letter to the US Railroad Retirement Board that investments in China opened its retirees to “unnecessary economic risk,” the New York Times reported Tuesday. The letter also noted that the investments would put money into the hands of companies “that raise significant national security and humanitarian concerns,” including some that supply the Chinese army. Citing a “time of mounting uncertainty,” O’Brien and Kudlow said “the possibility of future sanctions or boycotts that may arise from a wide range of issues, including the culpable actions of the Chinese government with respect to the global spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, the suppression of Hong Kong’s democracy.” The Railroad Retirement Board, an independent federal agency, managed $28.3 billion in assets in late 2018, the report said. It said the board has placed the assets in a diversified portfolio as many private-sector retirement plans have. The White House’s warning comes at a time of increased tension between Washington and Beijing. President Trump blamed China for fumbling its response to the coronavirus, which originated in the city of Wuhan. And the world’s two biggest economies have been engaged in a trade war after Trump accused Beijing of treating US companies unfairly and stealing intellectual property. Last week, China imposed a strict national security law on Hong Kong that cracks down on criticism of the Chinese Communist Party and criminalizes “secession,” “subversion” and organization of “terrorist activities.” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in an interview Monday with Fox News, said the US is considering banning TikTok and other Chinese social media apps over concerns they gather users’ data and share it with the Chinese Communist Party. “I don’t want to get out in front of [Trump], but it’s something we’re looking at,” Pompeo said. “We are taking this very seriously. We are certainly looking at it.”

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