… and welcome to another day of coverage of politics in the United States, the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, protests of police brutality and structural racism in the United States, and everything in between.
On Sunday night, the Washington Post followed the scoop on the New York Times and said “Russian rewards offered to militants linked to the Taliban Killing coalition forces in Afghanistan is believed to have killed several members of the United States service. ”
In response, under fire for alleged treason or gross negligence or both, Donald Trump tweeted: “Intel informed me that they did not find this information credible and therefore did not report it to me or [vice-president Mike Pence] Possibly another Russia hoax fabricated, perhaps by Fake News @nytimesbooks, that wants to make Republicans look bad! ”
Today, according to reports, the administration brief some members of congress on intelligence on the Russian plot.
It was unclear what the Times desk had to do with anything, but this was just another day in America. One that Trump started by retweeting a video in which a follower yelled, “White power! White power!That was removed, after a few hours, with a spokesman who said Trump had not heard the words in question.
At night: reporting that the Trump campaign is trying to change his attacks on Joe Biden, from Sleepy Joe to Corrupt Joe in another way. It’s poll-driven, of course: Biden leads in most battlefield states and nationally. Here is fivethirtyeight.com, to read more.
In coronavirus news, the US has now recorded more than 2.5 million cases and more than 125,000 deaths and is accumulating record daily totals of new cases. By the same measure, from Johns Hopkins University, more than 500,000 people have died worldwide.
Mike Pence, vice president and head of the White House coronavirus task force, made headlines over the weekend by canceling campaign events due to spikes in states that reopened early, advising the use of masks in others and appear (with mask) in another with a massive chorus that … wore no masks. Here’s Lauren Aratani with a look at a key question:
And so at protests stemming from the murder of George Floyd, an African American man, arrested by four Minneapolis police officers on May 25. Confrontations between police and protesters continued overnight, in cities across the United States. Meanwhile, in Jackson, Mississippi, there was a victory for those seeking change: the last state to wear the Confederate battle emblem on its state flag voted to remove it.
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