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Title: Judge halts first federal execution in 17 years, citing COVID-19 WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Indiana on Friday halted the first federal execution planned in 17 years, citing concerns over the coronavirus by the victims’ family. Daniel Lee, 47, had been scheduled to die by lethal injection on Monday. Lee, of Yukon, Oklahoma, was convicted in Arkansas of the 1996 killings of gun dealer William Mueller, his wife, Nancy, and her 8-year-old daughter, Sarah Powell. But Chief District Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson ruled that the execution would be put on hold because the family of the victims wanted to attend but were afraid of traveling during the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 130,000 people and is ravaging prisons nationwide. Attorney General William Barr has said part of the reason to resume executions was to carry out the sentences imposed by the court and to deliver a sense of justice to the victim’s families, though relatives of those killed by Lee did not want that. They have pleaded for years that Lee instead should receive the same life sentence as the ringleader in the deadly scheme. The relatives, including Earlene Branch Peterson, who lost her daughter and granddaughter in the killing, had urged the Trump administration for months not to move forward with the death sentence and had argued their grief is compounded by the push to execute Lee in the middle of a pandemic. “The harm to Ms. Peterson, for example, is being forced to choose whether being present for the execution of a man responsible for the death of her daughter and granddaughter is worth defying her doctor’s orders and risking her own life,” the judge wrote. The injunction delays the execution until there is no longer such an emergency. The court order applies only to Lee’s execution and does not halt two other executions that are scheduled for later next week. The decision to proceed with the executions had been criticized as a dangerous and political move. Critics argue the government is instead creating an unnecessary and manufactured urgency around a topic that isn’t high on the list of American concerns right now. Chevie Kehoe, whom prosecutors described as the ringleader, recruited Lee in 1995 for his white supremacist organization. Two years later, they were arrested for the killings of the Muellers and Sarah in Tilly, Arkansas, about 75 miles northwest of Little Rock. At their 1999 trial, prosecutors said Kehoe, of Colville, Washington, and Lee stole guns and $50,000 in cash from the Muellers as part of their plan to establish a whites-only nation. Lee’s attorneys also cite evidence from his trial that Kehoe actually killed Sarah. The executions appeared set to happen following a Supreme Court decision refusing to block them and a lower court affirming the ruling. It’s not clear what will happen with the other scheduled executions, which are scheduled next week for Wednesday and Friday. Wesley Ira Purkey, of Kansas, who raped and murdered a 16-year-old girl and killed an 80-year-old woman, is scheduled to die Wednesday. Dustin Lee Honken, who killed five people in Iowa, including two children, is scheduled to be executed Friday. Keith Dwayne Nelson, scheduled to be executed in August, was convicted of kidnapping a 10-year-old girl while she was rollerblading in front of her Kansas home, raping her in a forest behind a church and then strangling her.

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Title: COVID-19 victims had extensive blood clots: doctor Autopsies found blood clots in “almost every organ” of coronavirus victims, according to a top New York City pathologist, who called the results “dramatic.” Early on, doctors found blood clots “in lines and various large vessels” of COVID-19 patients, Dr. Amy Rapkiewicz told CNN on Thursday. But then autopsies showed the damage was far worse. “The clotting was not only in the large vessels but also in the smaller vessels,” said Rapkiewicz, chairman of the department of pathology at NYU Langone Medical Center. “And this was dramatic because though we might have expected it in the lungs, we found it in almost every organ that we looked at in our autopsy study.” The autopsies also revealed that large bone marrow cells called megakaryocytes — which typically don’t travel outside the bone and lungs — circulated to other parts of the body. “We found them in the heart and the kidneys and the liver and other organs,” said Rapkiewicz. “Notably in the heart, megakaryocytes produce something called platelets that are intimately involved in blood clotting.” The findings are similar to those in April, when doctors at Mount Sinai spotted signs of blood thickening and clotting in different organs. Rapkiewicz said myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart, wasn’t detected in the autopsies, though the condition was initially suspected in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak.

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Title: Bachelor Gov. Andrew Cuomo says he's still not seeing anyone Gov. Andrew Cuomo says he’s still one of New York’s most eligible bachelors. Cuomo, 62, who split from longtime girlfriend Sandra Lee last year, twice said “no” when asked if he was dating during a radio interview Friday. “What happened to the woman you are recommending,” Cuomo playfully asked WAMC radio interviewer Alan Chartock after saying “no” to being in a relationship. When Chartock asked again “got anyone?” Cuomo said, “No, I was going to follow up on your letter.” Cuomo and Lee split up last year after a 14-year-old relationship. Both initially denied to Page Six that they were splitsville when it reported they were already living apart — only to admit their separation months later. Cuomo was previously married to Kerry Kennedy. They have three daughters. Even Cuomo’s younger brother, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, has teased him on air about his bachelor status. Cuomo’s daily televised coronavirus briefings raised his national profile as Americans hungered for information about the killer virus. Fans were dubbed “Cuomosexuals.” Social media even took notice when Cuomor returned from the Fourth of July weekend with a bronze tan. Meanwhile, Cuomo said he wants to write a book about his and New York’s grueling experience grappling with the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected 400,000 residents and killed 25,000. “I’m thinking of writing a book of what we went through…lessons learned,” the governor said. “If we don’t learn from this, it will compound the whole crisis we went through.” The governor, who on Friday sent a shipment of remdesivir to hard-hit Florida, said he plans to travel to another state next week that is now experiencing a rise in COVID-19. “I have a number of requests,” he said. Cuomo said New York – through a lock-down and social distance restrictions – has dramatically reduced the number of COVID-cases while phasing in a reopening of the economy. But with the virus raging in many other southern and western states, he said it’s only a matter of time before New York suffers from another increase. “The only question is how far up our rate goes up,” he said. Cuomo also admitted that his own travel advisory requiring visitors from 19 other states to quarantine for 14 days upon entry is not enforceable. “How do you catch someone driving in?” he said, adding, “It’s like trying to catch water in the screen.”

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Title: Coronavirus spikes could mean return to lockdowns: WHO The World Health Organization said Friday that countries may have to lock down again as coronavirus cases continue to spike worldwide, with over 12 million now reported — more than double the amount reported six weeks ago. “We all want to avoid whole countries going back into total lockdown, that is not a desire that anybody has,” said Dr. Michael Ryan, executive director of WHO’s Health Emergencies Program, at a press conference Friday, CBS News reported. “But there may be situations in which that is the only option.” Ryan called it the “fundamental question” facing every community and every nation. “Once lockdowns were ended there was always the risk that the disease could bounce back,” he added. The WHO — which President Trump took steps to withdraw from this week — has advised countries to open slowly, pay close attention to their data and proceed cautiously as they reopen. “Accept the fact that in our current situation it is very unlikely that we can eradicate or eliminate this virus,” he said. “When the virus is present there is a risk of spread,” he said. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, said that several countries have also been brought back from severe outbreaks, including Italy, where more than 34,000 people died from the unchecked virus. “Across all walks of life we’re all being tested to the limits,” Tedros said. “The best shot we have is to work together in national unity and global solidarity.” The news came as confirmed cases in the US topped 3 million, more than any country in the world, and more than 133,000 Americans have been killed by the virus, also tops in the world. Dr. Anthony Fauci of the president’s Coronavirus Task Force, said some US states such as Florida are seeing a surge in coronavirus cases because they didn’t follow guidelines and prematurely reopened as the US reported 63,200 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, the Financial Times reported. The previous high was on Tuesday, when 60,000 cases were reported across the country, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Three of the hardest-hit states — California, Texas and Florida — just recorded their highest daily death tolls yet, the network reported. Trump has said that once states reopened, which he has been pushing for, there would be no return to lockdowns.

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Title: Over 150 Minneapolis police officers file disability claims MINNEAPOLIS — More than 150 Minneapolis police officers are filing work-related disability claims after the death of George Floyd and ensuing unrest, with about three-quarters citing post-traumatic stress disorder as the reason for their planned departures, according to an attorney representing the officers. Their duty disability claims, which will take months to process, come as the city is seeing an increase in violent crime and while city leaders push a proposal to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a new agency that they say would have a more holistic approach. While Floyd’s death in May and the unrest that followed are not the direct cause of many of the disability requests, attorney Ron Meuser said, those events and what Meuser called a lack of support from city leadership were a breaking point for many who had been struggling with PTSD from years on the job. Duty disability means the officer was disabled while engaged in inherently dangerous acts specific to the job. “Following the George Floyd incident, unfortunately it became too much and as a result they were unable to, and are unable to, continue on and move forward,” Meuser said. “They feel totally and utterly abandoned.” He said many officers he represents were at a precinct that police abandoned as people were breaking in during the unrest. Some officers feared they wouldn’t make it home, he said, and wrote final notes to loved ones. People in the crowd ultimately set fire to the building. Mayor Jacob Frey issued a statement saying that COVID-19 and unrest following Floyd’s death tested the community and officers in profound ways. He said cities need resources to reflect the realities on the ground. “In the meantime, I am committed to supporting those officers committed to carrying out their oath to serve and protect the people of Minneapolis during a challenging time for our city,” he said. Meuser said in recent weeks, 150 officers have retained his office for help in filing for duty disability benefits through the state’s Public Employment Retirement Association, or PERA. So far, 75 of them have already left the job, he said. Police spokesman John Elder questioned Meuser’s figure of 150, though he does expect an increase in departures. The department currently has about 850 officers and will adjust staffing to ensure it can do its job, he said. The city said it has received 17 PTSD workers compensation claims in the last month, but when it comes to PERA duty disability, officers are not obligated to notify the Police Department that an application was submitted. Meuser said the city isn’t being transparent about departures, and the numbers it sees will lag as PERA benefits take months to process. Doug Anderson, executive director for PERA, said 150 officers seeking duty disability from one department would be high. PERA approved 105 disability applications from both police and firefighters statewide in all of 2019, including 60 claims for duty-related PTSD and 20 for other work-related injuries. PERA is primarily a retirement plan, in which members and employers contribute funds. Members who become disabled can receive a disability benefit until age 55, at which time retirement benefits kick in. A high percentage of those on duty disability do not return to the job, Anderson said. “It’s a disability that as a general rule is a permanent designation entitling them for benefits for the rest of their life,” Meuser said. A high number of people taking PERA disability likely won’t impact the city budget immediately, as the city’s rate of contribution to the plan is fixed, though the Minnesota Legislature could increase contribution rates. The city can incur significant costs if the leave is classified as “duty disability,” because the city would continue to pay for the officer’s health insurance. To apply, an officer needs supporting documents from two physicians. A third-party administrator ensures applications are complete. If there is a discrepancy, PERA can require an independent medical evaluation. The Police Department could also challenge an application, and there is a process for appeal. Denials and appeals are uncommon, Anderson said. Meuser made his announcement amid an increase in violent crime. From Thursday night to Friday morning alone, nine people were shot in Minneapolis, including one fatally. Police data analyzed by the Star Tribune show that at least 243 people have been shot so far this year, compared with 269 in all of 2019. Asked about his timing, Meuser said he believes Minneapolis officers are being unfairly tarnished, and it’s time to call out “decades of failed leadership” in the city. Meuser opposes calls to dismantle or defund the Police Department, and said he hopes the news that veteran officers are leaving will make the public reassess the city’s current trajectory. “The men and women in public safety who give their heart and soul to serve Minneapolis and keep it safe deserve to have Minneapolis leaders to step up and supporting them,” he said. “Instead of spending time plotting the dismantling of the force, let’s come together to improve community trust and work towards a safer city for all. “

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Title: Brooklyn's US attorney tapped for Justice Department role Advertisement The top federal prosecutor in Brooklyn is leaving his post for a job at the U.S. Justice Department in Washington. Richard Donoghue, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, told his staff Thursday that he will become the top deputy to Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen. The change takes effect July 13, said John Marzulli, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office. Donoghue is the second U.S. attorney in New York to leave his post in recent weeks. His former counterpart in Manhattan, Geoffrey Berman, was recently fired after overseeing several investigations that rankled President Donald Trump. Donoghue was appointed U.S. attorney in early 2018, serving as the chief federal prosecutor for a region that includes Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island. He was not formally nominated by Trump but sworn in a few months later by the district’s judges. The Eastern District prosecuted several high-profile cases during Donoghue’s tenure, including the conviction of notorious drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

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Title: Tropical Storm Fay becomes earliest 'F'-named cyclone Tropical Storm Fay, which churned up the East Coast toward New York Friday, has become the earliest cyclone in the Atlantic to reach the letter F in the official list of storm names, according to AccuWeather meteorologists. Fay is the sixth named storm of this year’s hurricane season, breaking the record for the previous earliest “F”- named storm, which was set on July 21, 2005, the weather experts said. “One reason we’re seeing storms earlier this year is that the Atlantic waters are warmer than average, and that helps storms develop.  There’s also high pressure in the area,” said AccuWeather senior meteorologist Alan Reppert. So far, tropical storms this season have included Arthur and Bertha, which formed in May — before the official start of hurricane season on June 1 — followed by Cristobal and Edouard. On Friday, strong winds pelted New Jersey’s southern coastline as the National Hurricane Center warned the storm could produce 2 to 4 inches of rain along with possible flash flooding in New York and New England. The storm, which had sustained winds of at least 40 miles per hour, was expected to make landfall near Atlantic City Friday night and sweep north early Saturday, causing rainfall and poor beach conditions in New York, Reppert said. “I’d prepare by bringing in things from outside like umbrellas and patio chairs, and don’t venture outside unless you have to,” Reppert said. Fay formed Thursday afternoon near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina and warnings have been issued in Fenwick Island, Delaware to Watch Hill, Rhode Island and Long Island. Isolated tornadoes are also possible in parts of New Jersey, southeast New York and southern New England, Reppert said.

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Title: Ghislaine Maxwell had no contact with Epstein for over a decade: lawyers Lawyers for Ghislaine Maxwell claimed in a court filing Friday that the alleged madame hadn’t been in contact with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein for more than decade prior to his 2019 suicide in a Manhattan jail cell. Maxwell’s lawyers made the claim while arguing she should be released on $5 million bond while awaiting trial on a six-count indictment for allegedly procuring girls for Epstein to abuse and then lying about it under oath. They wrote that the media sought to blame Maxwell for Epstein’s alleged crimes after his suicide — even though she hadn’t been in contact with him for years. “The media focus quickly shifted to our client—wrongly trying to substitute her for Epstein—even though she’d had no contact with Epstein for more than a decade, had never been charged with a crime or been found liable in any civil litigation, and has always denied any allegations of claimed misconduct,” her lawyers wrote in the court filing. “But sometimes the simplest point is the most critical one: Ghislaine Maxwell is not Jeffrey Epstein,” they added. Her attorneys were responding to a detention memo by prosecutors who argued she should be remanded because of her strong ties to foreign countries, exuberant wealth and the severity of the charges against her. In the the Friday filing, Maxwell’s attorneys argued she’d been scapegoated by the press and was forced to go into hiding after Epstein’s suicide to avoid intrusive reporters who sought to blame her for Epstein’s crimes.

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Title: Trump could commute Roger Stone's sentence tonight: report President Trump was expected to announce as early as Friday night that he would commute Roger Stone’s sentence — just days before his longtime political adviser was due to report to prison to serve 40 months, Fox News reported. Stone is set to report to prison on Tuesday. He was sentenced in February after being convicted in November 2019 on seven counts of obstruction, witness tampering and making false statements to Congress. Stone, however, has appealed his conviction and continues to deny any wrongdoing. Earlier Friday, Trump hinted that he was considering a presidential pardon for Stone. “I’ll be looking at it. I think Roger Stone was very unfairly treated, as were many people, and in the meantime Comey and all these guys are walking around, including Biden and Obama, because we caught them spying on my campaign. Who would have believed that one?” the president said as he departed DC for events in Florida, repeating his claim that the former administration was out to get him. He was referring to former FBI Director James Comey, former Vice President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama. Stone said a day earlier he was “praying” that Trump would grant him clemency or a pardon. Stone told Fox News he had not had any formal contact with the White House on a potential presidential pardon or commutation of his sentence. “I think I’ll be the last person to know. He hates leaks, and he hates to be told what to do. I have instructed my lawyers not to contact the lawyers at the White House,” he told Fox. “The president, who I’ve known for 40 years, has an incredible sense of fairness. He is aware that the people trying to destroy Michael Flynn, now trying to destroy me, are the people trying to destroy him.” When asked whether he hoped the president would offer him clemency, he said, “I’m praying he does” so that he could avoid prison.

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Title: Alabama jail not issuing inmates masks because 'they’re going to eat them' An Alabama jail won’t allow inmates to wear face masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus because “they’re going to eat them,” an official said in a report. Jailers at the Madison County facility in Huntsville have confiscated inmates’ masks and refused to issue new ones — even though at least one worker there has tested positive for the illness, according to al.com. Asked why inmates aren’t allowed to wear the protective gear recommended by the CDC, Brent Patterson, a spokesman for the county sheriff’s office which operates the jail, cited safety concerns. “You give them face masks [with] a nose piece — metal pieces in them — they’re going to eat them,” he said, according to the outlet. “They’re going to swallow them.” If that happened, people would then question why jailbirds were given potentially dangerous objects, Patterson said. Courtney Moore — 33-year-old who was arrested on misdemeanor charges at a protest on June 28 —  said his mask was taken away while he was booked at the facility. “It’s ridiculous,” Moore told the outlet. “I was exposed to an unsafe condition. I think that is very, very irresponsible of them, knowing how important masks are, to continue to arrest people and put their health at risk.” When Moore was arrested, the county had not reported any COVID-19 cases inside the jail. But a worker there tested positive last week, and jailers are still refusing to give inmates face masks. Jail employees — but not inmates — are now required to wear masks, according to the sheriff’s office.

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Title: Ohio Rep. wants people to stop getting tested for COVID-19 An Ohio lawmaker called for people to stop getting tested for the coronavirus while criticizing a state order that requires some people to wear masks in public. “Are you tired of living in a dictatorship yet?” Republican state Rep. Nino Vitale wrote in a Facebook post Tuesday. “This is what happens when people go crazy and get tested. STOP GETTING TESTED! It is giving the government an excuse to claim something is happening that is not happening at the magnitude they say it is happening.” His comments came after Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, announced a mandate requiring people in seven Ohio counties — including the areas of Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus — to wear masks in public places, starting this week. The order states that people in Butler, Cuyahoga, Franklin, Hamilton, Huron, Montgomery and Trumbull counties must wear masks in public places because they have high numbers of COVID-19 cases. “In addition to social distancing and reducing unnecessary interactions with others, we know that wearing a mask helps protect others in the community,” DeWine said Tuesday before unveiling the order. “We have seven separate counties with a significant number of people in the state of Ohio who we feel have a huge imminent crisis.” While health officials have stressed the importance of testing to identify those infected by the virus — and to pinpoint where it’s spreading — some elected officials have downplayed the need for testing. In May, Vitale introduced legislation that would forbid Ohio officials from requiring masks without a two-thirds majority vote from the Ohio Senate and House. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends wearing a cloth face mask in public to reduce the spread of coronavirus. Vitale didn’t immediately return The Post’s request for comment.

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Title: Bodies donated to science left to rot, be eaten by rats: report French authorities are probing claims that human bodies donated for science were left to rot and be eaten by rats at a Paris university research center, according to a report. The probe comes after an investigation by French newspaper L’Express, published in November last year, detailed how thousands of bodies were found in vile conditions at the Centre for Body Donations of Paris Descartes University, The Guardian reports. The newspaper, describing the scene photographed in 2016, said naked corpses were dismembered and haphazardly stacked on top of one another or discarded in overflowing garbage bags. Some body parts were decomposing while others were gnawed by rats, the newspaper reported, according to The Guardian. A severed head was also found on the floor. The grisly discovery caused the French government to shut down the center while prosecutors launched an investigation. But this week, prosecutors handed over the “violations of the integrity of a corpse” investigation to French magistrates, the Paris prosecutor’s office announced Thursday. “This is very good news,” said Fredereic Douchez, a lawyer for the families, who added that the magistrates have much wider powers to get to the bottom of what happened, the newspaper reports. The research center, which opened in 1953, was one of the largest in Europe and received hundreds of donated cadavers a year, The Guardian said. Almost 80 complaints have been filed against the center.

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Title: Facebook may ban election ads, report says Facebook reportedly is considering a ban on political ads in the days before the November election. The potential ban would aim to limit “misleading” content ahead of the vote, according to Bloomberg News. The social media giant did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post. Facebook and Google are the internet’s largest ad platforms. Together they earn about 60 percent of ad revenue. The news comes as Facebook resists an activist campaign to “reform” its moderation practices to censor allegedly racially offensive posts. The campaign led many companies to drop ads. Twitter last year said it would ban paid political ads after platforms came under criticism for distributing Russian ads in 2016. The Trump campaign said it was prepared to spend $10 million or more on Twitter ads before that decision.

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Title: Wayfair product listings spark child trafficking theory A conspiracy theory emerged Friday that the Wayfair online store was using the sale of storage cabinets as a cover for child trafficking — which the home decor company immediately denounced as false. A post on the social media website Reddit noted the high cost of the furniture — along with the fact that each item was identified by a female name — as potential evidence of the purported scandal, Newsweek reported. The prices for the cabinets — called Alyvia, Neriah, Samiyah and Yaritza — ranged from $12,699.99 to $14,499.99 each, according to a screenshot posted in the “r/conspiracy” subreddit. “Is it possible Wayfair involved in Human trafficking with their WFX Utility collection? Or are these just extremely overpriced cabinets? (Note the names of the cabinets) this makes me sick to my stomach if it’s true :(,” user PrincessPeach1987 wrote Thursday. The post quickly drew more than 700 comments from the subreddit’s 1.3 million members, including the assertion that “some of the names are missing children.” “i cant access the cabinets anymore, but i remember a cabinet called Samiyah for like 12K, which is also a missing child from this month!” user coffeeismymuse added. In a statement, Wayfair said, “There is, of course, no truth to these claims.” “The products in question are industrial grade cabinets that are accurately priced,” the company said. “Recognizing that the photos and descriptions provided by the supplier did not adequately explain the high price point, we have temporarily removed the products from site to rename them and to provide a more in-depth description and photos that accurately depict the product to clarify the price point.” In chat conversations with Newsweek, PrincessPeach1987 reportedly said they were “involved in a local organization that helps victims of human trafficking” and had become “suspicious most of the time now” as a result. PrincessPeach1987 also characterized their initial post as less of a direct accusation and more of an effort to “see if anyone else had more details,” Newsweek said.

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Title: Trump says Joe Biden is a 'puppet' of AOC and Bernie Sanders President Trump said Friday that Joe Biden is “a puppet” of New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and would leave people “at the mercy of a socialist mob.” Trump told Cuban and Venezuelan exiles in Florida that Biden’s alliance with the self-described socialists is frightening. “Joe Biden and the radical left are trying to impose the same system — socialism plus — in America. Biden is a puppet of Bernie Sanders, AOC and the militant left,” Trump said. “Nobody will be safe in a Biden America, but Biden doesn’t know what a Biden America is if you ask him to define it — he wouldn’t even know what it is, but other people do. And he will have radical people running that.” Sanders (I-Vt.) and Biden issued a joint policy agenda Wednesday. The left-wing senator defeated Biden in Democrats’ first three presidential contests this year and his enthusiastic base is essential for Biden in November. Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is co-chairing a Biden campaign climate change task force. Trump often describes Biden, 77, as senile and says “other people” will run the country if he’s elected. In Florida, Trump added a jab at Biden’s remark this week endorsing redirecting police funds following the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota. “Biden wants to defund the police,” Trump said. “He wants to call the cops the enemy, which he did the other day, leaving every citizen at the mercy of a socialist mob, or a mob far worse than socialism was ever meant to be.” Trump slammed the Obama administration’s policies in Latin America, including steps toward lifting the longstanding Cuban embargo. By contrast, Trump said, he sanctioned Venezuela’s socialist government and recognized Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country’s interim president. “Biden pledged to reinstate the pro-Communist policies of the Obama-Biden administration. They were pro-Communist policies. The deal he made with Cuba is ridiculous,” Trump said.

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Title: Democratic Senate campaigns rake in eye-popping donation sums In Senate races across the country, Democratic contenders are raising vast sums to unseat Republican incumbents in an effort to retake the majority in November, according to a report. Amy McGrath, a former Marine Corps fighter pilot vying to unseat Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), has raised a stunning $17.4 million to launch her battle for the seat that McConnell has held since 1985, according to the LA Times. Sara Gideon, Democratic speaker of the House in Maine and challenger to GOP stalwart Sen. Susan Collins, said last week she has raised $9 million this quarter for her campaign. In South Carolina, Jamie Harrison, the Democrat who is challenging staunch President Trump supporter Sen. Lindsay Graham, has reportedly raised nearly $14 million in the last quarter, which is nearly double what he raised in the first quarter, the report says. Steve Bullock, a former Montana governor and former Democratic presidential hopeful, jumped into his state’s US Senate race in March to face off against GOP freshman Sen. Steve Daines. Bullock reportedly raised $7.7 million in the second quarter, and the hope is that a Democratic financial and electoral push may help swing a state that Trump carried by 20 points in 2016. The reason behind the surge of cash into the coffers of left-wing Senate challengers is that Democrats are seeing a chance to take back Congress’ upper chamber in 2020. Republicans are facing an uphill battle to defend 23 seats, while the chamber’s Democrats face challenges for 12 seats. Democrats need only flip four Republican seats to take back the Senate majority currently held by the GOP. “The problem for Republicans is that Democrats are going to have the resources to get their message out and keep expanding the map in our direction by putting more Republican seats in play,” said Stewart Boss, national press secretary for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, speaking to the Los Angeles Times. “Not just Arizona and Colorado, but South Carolina and Kentucky, where those are tougher states.” With the president’s re-election facing challenges as the country grapples with the turmoil of coronavirus spread, economic strife and national protests, Democrats see chances to snatch Republican seats. Joe Biden’s campaign and Democratic committees raised $10 million more than Trump and Republicans in June.

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Title: Cuomo sending remdesivir to Florida to fight coronavirus New York is sending Florida an emergency supply of the drug remdesivir to help treat 280 coronavirus-infected patients until a federal shipment arrives, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Friday. While COVID-19 cases have plummeted in New York following a severe stay-at-home lockdown and other social distancing measures, the killer virus is now ravaging the Sunshine State. New York’s shipment of the medication will arrive in Florida Saturday. “When New York was climbing the COVID mountain with no end in sight and resources were scarce, we were incredibly moved by the generosity of states around the country that stepped up to provide supplies and medical personnel in our time of need,” Cuomo said. “Thanks to the hard work and sacrifice of the people of New York — and the assistance of those states — we bent the curve. With continued discipline of wearing masks and social distancing, along with a phased, data-driven reopening, New York’s numbers have remained low and steady. “I said at the time that we would return the favor if and when other states needed help. Today, on behalf of all New Yorkers, we will deploy Remdesivir to help Florida care for patients as it waits for further supply from the federal government. We will stand by our fellow Americans every step of the way as our nation fights COVID-19 together.” The antiviral drug remdesivir reduces the risk of death of severely ill COVID-19 patients by 62 percent, the drug company that makes it said Friday.

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Title: China churches ordered to praise Xi Jinping’s handling of coronavirus before reopening Under Chinese Communist Party (CCP) instruction, state-run churches in China say they were required to raise the national flag, sing the anthem and praise Xi Jinping’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic in order to reopen, a watchdog reports. The Lishiting Catholic Church in the Shunhe district of Kaifeng reopened on June 14 with around 20 people as a priest led the required ceremony supervised by government officials, according to Bitter Winter. “We solemnly raise the national flag here today after the epidemic, witnessing the fruits of all people working together under the leadership of Xi Jinping who directs the government and the Party,” the priest allegedly said. On the same day in the same district, a member of the Gangxi Christian Church said its leaders were also instructed to laud Chinese leaders for their handling of the pandemic. “The church finally reopened after five months, 147 days, or 21 Sundays, but instead of singing hymns to praise God, the government required us to raise the national flag and sing the national anthem, praising Xi Jinping’s ‘victory in fighting the epidemic,'” a congregant shared. The congregant added, “This is completely contrary to our belief.” The Two Chinese Christian Councils in Henan, Zhejiang and other provinces, shared that they were instructed to tell members “moving stories about China’s battle with the pandemic.” And a pastor from Quannan Church, the largest Christian church in Quanzhou city in the southeastern province of Fujian, noted that he was told by officials to also criticize the United States for their handling of COVID-19. The pastor said he was required to promote love for the “socialist system and the Communist Party.” The United Front Work Department and Religious Affairs Bureau reportedly demanded churches to hold flag-raising ceremonies and promote patriotism, a member said, adding that an official said: “From now on, all churches have to do so, or they will be shut down and their leaders dismissed.” Marco Respinti, the director-in-charge of the Italian-based publication Bitter Winter, told Fox News this is another example of the CCP trying to “sinicize,” meaning “everything must become truly Chinese, but what they really mean is that everything must become puppets of the Communist regime … even at the cost of obliging people to blasphemous things.” Respinti notes other examples of how the CCP forces churches to remove Christian symbols and replace them with portraits of Xi Jinping. And he says religious persecution in the country that is known for violating human rights across the board only worsened by trading freedoms for obedience to the Communist party. “China used the coronavirus in many ways, in one way for propaganda reasons,” Respinti said. “We know the Chinese regime is guilty for the coronavirus, at least in delaying vital information and responsible for thousands of deaths around the world.” “They were saying they were able to defeat the coronavirus,” he added. “They sold this lie to the world and also tried to sell the so-called Chinese model offering to help … all the while oppressing religious and ethnic groups.”

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Title: White woman who pulled gun on black family says she feared for her life The white woman who was arrested after pointing a gun at a black woman and her daughter during an argument in a Chipotle parking lot says she did it because she feared for her life, according to a report Friday. In the first time since footage of the heated confrontation surfaced, Jillian Wuestenberg spoke out about pulling the firearm — saying she felt threatened because the duo blocked her from leaving a Michigan Chipotle, according to 7 Action News. “Within moments, a second or two, I had multiple people within two feet of me and I just remember thinking, ‘I am not going home tonight,’” Jillian, 32, tearfully told the local station. “It’s scary…The more I see [the video] the more I realize I’m more afraid of that situation now than I was then.” Asked why she felt the need to load a bullet into the gun’s chamber, she said, “That meant I am about to die and I don’t want to die.” The tense encounter erupted when Wuestenberg allegedly bumped into Takelia Hill’s 15-year-old daughter, Makayla Green, while leaving the restaurant in Lake Orion at around 6 p.m. on July 1. The footage, which doesn’t show the alleged bump, picks up after the altercation spilled into the parking lot — and shows Hill and her daughter demand an apology, with the teen calling her “racist and ignorant.” Wuestenberg and her husband, Eric, then get into their SUV and try to back out of the parking spot as Hill steps back before hitting the back window of the vehicle — claiming she thought the driver was going to hit them. That’s when Wuestenberg hopped out of the car and pointed a loaded gun at the mother and daughter. Both Wuestenbergs are each facing an assault charge —  which Hill’s lawyer, Christopher Quinn, said is much-deserved. “She was able to get into the vehicle,” Quinn told the station. “They were able to drive off. They didn’t choose to drive off. They actually almost hit my client with their van. And then jumped out like Bonnie and Clyde with guns pointed at them. They were going to make sure it was understood they were the ones in charge.” In the interview, Wuestenberg also said she didn’t think twice about pulling the weapon because she has experience with firearms. “I grew up around lots of handguns, lots of rifles,” she said. “They are just an everyday part of life. It was just something that was there.”

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Title: Trump asks Florida narcotics cops if they 'blow up' seized drugs WASHINGTON — President Trump flew to Florida on Friday to meet with the nation’s top narcotics cops and had one very pressing question: What do they do with the drugs? The president was in Doral to meet with United States Southern Command, a Department of Defense operation which patrols the US coastal border, to celebrate their new counter-narcotics operation. “In a single four-day period in May, our courageous coast guard men and women stopped three narcos submarines packed with poisonous drugs, keeping thousands of pounds of lethal narcotics off of our streets and off of our city areas,” Trump told the crowd. “We got rid of it. We got it. We have it and I don’t know what you do with it. What do you do with it, by the way?” the president continued. “You get all that stuff, you dump it? What do you do with it, Admiral?” he pressed. “I want to hear, what do you do with that? You blow it up or just dump it someplace,” Trump joked. “They burn it, sir,” one defense official responded. Responded Trump: “They burn it? That sounds like a good way of doing it.” The president was criticized for deciding to fly to Florida on Friday as the state experiences a record scourge of new coronavirus infections. In his speech, Trump said he wanted to make the trip to “personally thank” United States Southern Command troops for their “phenomenal” effort in seizing billions of dollars of narcotics and the arrest of 1,000 drug traffickers. “We’re taking the fight directly to the sinister criminal cartels and we’re showing them no mercy,” he warned. “Our message is clear, you will not threaten our citizens, you will not poison our children, and you will not infiltrate our borders,” he continued. “We will find you, we will stop you, and we will put everybody that we find behind bars, if you’re lucky.” Later Friday, Trump will visit a church and hold a roundtable on the crisis in Venezuela before meeting supporters at a private residence and flying back to the White House on Friday evening. Trump had been due to hold a rally in New Hampshire on Saturday evening but it was canceled due to bad weather.

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Title: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says if Walmart is open, schools should be too Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis says it’s perfectly safe to send kids back to school this fall despite rapidly rising numbers of coronavirus cases in the Sunshine State — arguing that if Walmart was open, schools should be too. “I’m confident if you can do Home Depot, if you can do Walmart, if you can do these things, we absolutely can do the schools,” he said Thursday during an appearance in Jacksonville with US Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia. “I want our kids to be able to minimize this education gap that I think has developed.” But he also noted that not all parents may agree with him. “Different parents have different calculations. If a parent wants to opt for virtual education, they should absolutely be able to do that. We shouldn’t be forcing them to do any types of decisions,” he added. DeSantis claimed that data showed the risk of the virus in children was low, and that the risk of hospitalization from the virus for those under 18 was “substantially less” than for the flu. Dr. Deborah Birx of the Coronavirus Task Force said earlier this week that cases appeared low among children because so few had been tested. DeSantis made similar remarks a day earlier during an appearance on the Rush Limbaugh show, adding the reopening of fast food joints as another piece of evidence to back his theory. “My kids aren’t school-age yet. I got a 3-year-old daughter, 2-year-old son, and a newborn daughter. And I can tell you if they were school-age, I would have zero concern sending them,” he told Limbaugh. “With respect to the schools,” DeSantis continued. “Walmart, essential service. Home Depot, essential service. Fast food, essential service. How is it that the schools for our kids would not be considered an essential service? And I think it’s vital. I think that they’ve fallen way behind.” Meanwhile, Florida’s Department of Health on Friday confirmed 11,433 new cases of COVID-19, the second highest single-day total recorded since the pandemic began in March, The Miami Herald reported. The highest 24-hour total recorded in the state was on Saturday, with 11,458 new cases. Florida now has 244,151 confirmed cases, and there were also 93 new deaths announced, raising the statewide death toll to 4,102, the paper reported. DeSantis dismissed the rising cases as a “blip” and told residents not to be afraid. “I know we’ve had a lot of different blips,” DeSantis said. “We’re now at a higher blip than where we were in May and the beginning of June.” And he also said that “flattening the curve” of coronavirus cases, which experts call crucial to slowing the spread, was not all that it’s cracked up to be — and claimed that doing so actually prolonged the outbreak in his state. “When you have a flatter curve, which Florida has, if you look at the Northeast, they went boom,” DeSantis said during an event in Orlando on Friday, FloridaPolitics reported. “Florida, Texas, we’re just much flatter, it means it goes on longer. You said you wanted a flatter curve, but it’s drawn out over a longer period of time … than if you had a boom or bust.” Florida does not disclose the number of hospitalized COVID patients — but about 50 Florida hospitals reported their intensive care units reached full capacity this week.

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Title: Geoffrey Berman admits firing not linked to cases, memo says House Republicans on Friday fired back at Rep. Jerry Nadler’s version of testimony from former Manhattan acting US Attorney Geoffrey Berman, saying he actually exonerated the Trump administration of any impropriety in his ouster. According to a five-page memo written by Republican staff on the House Judiciary Committee, Berman undercut the core insinuation from Democrats that he was canned to undermine investigations of President Trump or his inner circle. “Although Committee Democrats half-heartedly allege the Attorney General’s offer of other positions in the Administration proves a nefarious but unspecified plot, Berman testified that his removal was not related to concerns the Attorney General had with his management of any cases,” the memo says. Berman testified to the committee behind closed doors Thursday. The Republican memo was sent to GOP lawmakers on the committee and summarizes the hearing. Nadler, the Democratic chairman of the committee, said Thursday that Attorney General William Barr may have committed a crime last month when he offered Berman prestigious new jobs if he would resign voluntarily. Berman refused to resign and was fired by Trump, who nominated Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton to replace him. Barr told Berman if he voluntarily resigned, he could lead the Justice Department’s civil division in Washington or replace Clayton as SEC chairman. Berman had not been presidentially nominated as US attorney and was serving in a temporary capacity since January 2018. In Nadler’s remarks to reporters Thursday, he said Barr may have committed crimes dangling new positions to lure Berman away from his post. “We don’t know yet if the attorney general’s conduct is criminal, but that kind of quid pro quo is awfully close to bribery,” Nadler said. But the Republican memo said Nadler was serving up a “one-sided view of Berman’s testimony.” “Berman never suggested the prospect of a quid pro quo concerning his duties as U.S. Attorney for the SDNY,” the Republican memo says, referring to the Southern District of New York. “Although Berman briefly suggested that he thought the Attorney General’s offer for a different position could be considered a quid pro quo, the evidence does not support an exchange of any real value. The Attorney General had decided to replace Berman and merely offered him the opportunity to continue his service with the Department at the Civil Division out of a desire to achieve an amicable transition.”

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Title: Michael Cohen back in solitary confinement in Otisville prison President Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen was transferred back to Otisville prison and is being held in a 14-day solitary confinement because of the coronavirus pandemic, his lawyer said Friday. Cohen was moved from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn to the central New York prison after his arrest at the federal courthouse in Manhattan Thursday morning, Cohen’s attorney Jeff Levine said. “Unbeknownst to me and his family, it happened last night,” Levine told The Post, adding that Cohen’s relatives are “devastated” by his incarceration. Cohen was arrested Thursday after he refused to agree to one of the stipulations to a home confinement agreement, which would have barred him from speaking to the press and blocked him from publishing a tell-all book that he’s been writing while behind bars in Otisville. Levine said Friday he and Cohen were having a “dialogue” with probation officials about the terms of his home confinement when he was taken into custody for not agreeing to the first term. His arrest comes after a photograph of Cohen dining out with his wife and another couple at a French restaurant on the Upper East Side was published on Page One of The Post. Cohen had been released from prison on furlough because of the coronavirus pandemic. Levine did not deny the exclusive photo may have influenced federal authorities’ decision to take Cohen back into custody. “It seems to be influenced by the optics of what happened that night,” Levine said, adding that he believes Cohen did not violate his furlough agreement by dining out.

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Title: Auschwitz survivor to meet children of soldier who freed her Advertisement An Auschwitz survivor will have the chance to meet the children of the American soldier who liberated her — after her great-grandson tracked the family down using a banknote and social media. Lily Ebert, 90, was 14 years old when her family was taken from their home in Bonyhád, Hungary, and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp, CNN reports. While Ebert and her two sisters were selected to work, her mother, brother and another sister never made it out. “Auschwitz was a hell,” she told the network. “Auschwitz was really a factory of death. The killing went on all the time … I hope nothing similar will ever happen again.” Ebert and her two sisters were liberated in April 1945, when she was 16 years old, while on a death march after months working in an Altenberg, Germany slave labor factory. “We were liberated after a few days walking without food, without water, without shoes,” she told CNN. “When they liberated us, we wanted only to get in somewhere, sit down and sleep and we were so hungry and thirsty.” That’s when an American soldier gave her a German banknote, with the message “a start to a new life” and “good luck and happiness” handwritten on it. “He was the first person who was kind and wasn’t an enemy,” she said. Ebert, who now lives in London and kept the kind note all these years, showed it to her great-grandson, Dov Forman, on July 4. Forman, 16, decided to share the story and a picture of the banknote on Twitter, joking to his great-grandmother that he would find the soldier in 24 hours, CNN said. The tweet quickly went viral and within 24 hours, the soldier was identified as an American Jewish GI, Private Hyman Schulman — thanks to a clue at the bottom of the note that stated his position as “assistant to Chaplain Schacter.” Sadly, the former soldier from Brooklyn passed away in 2013. But next week, Ebert and her great-grandson will meet Schulman’s kids virtually over Zoom. “It means so much that we can now connect with the family,” Ebert told the network.

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Title: CEO brandishes gun at Hispanic couple lost on his property: report The CEO of an energy company chased down and held a Hispanic couple at gunpoint after they accidentally drove onto his property in an affluent neighborhood in Colorado on their way to a wedding rehearsal dinner, according to a report. Chris Ochoa, 26, said in a Facebook post that he and his girlfriend were following GPS directions to his friend’s event on June 12 when they found themselves at the swanky Elk Canyon Estates in Sedalia, 9 News reported. He performed a U-turn to get back on track but “a large red truck pulled in front of me and cut me off, blocking the road,” Ochoa recounted. The driver, Paul Favret, “immediately got out of his truck and pointed a gun at us. He then ran to my driver’s side window (which was down) and continued to point the gun and yell that he was ‘going to blow our head off!’” he wrote. “Apparently, the u-turn that I had made was in his driveway; and he wasn’t happy about it. During this time we had our hands up, pleading that we were only looking for my friend’s wedding party and that we were not doing anything wrong.” Ochoa said he apologized for entering Favret’s property but said the man kept pointing the weapon at them. “My girlfriend was able to take a few pictures as he moved towards the front of our rental car, and she called 911 as well because we felt in danger as he kept pointing the gun at our faces and continued to tell us how much he wanted to kill us,” he said. In a statement to police, Ochoa wrote: “I stayed as still as possible because I knew he was in a rage, I knew he could shoot any time, and I knew I could die at any time based on how he was reacting.” He added: “As a minority, I felt in danger.” He said in his Facebook account that he later found out there had been two other vehicles that ended up at the same house due to faulty GPS directions, yet he and his girlfriend were the only ones held at gunpoint. “We were also the only minorities in the entire neighborhood where this occurred,” he said. “As I notified the officers that I wanted to press charges for being assaulted, the owner of the house where the wedding venue is being held issued a threat, stating: ‘If you press charges and disrupt my community I will cancel the wedding,'” he wrote. “I was in disbelief that she put me in the position of choosing between ruining my best friend’s wedding or doing what is right. I had no choice but to walk away. It amazed me that she was willing to cancel her own nephew’s wedding because of this.” The Douglas County District Attorney’s Office has filed five charges against Favret, CEO of Resource Energy, including two felony menacing counts and three misdemeanors, 9 News reported. “The Facebook post in question does not portray an accurate version of the events. However, I deeply regret my actions that day,” Favret told the outlet through a company rep. He also insisted that he could not distinguish the couple’s race. “I had no way of knowing the identities of the individuals in the vehicle,” Favret told 9 News. “I just saw the unknown vehicle very close to the home at a time when we were not expecting any visitors and our property is clearly marked with our address and is about 1/2 mile from their destination.” He added that some intruders on his property had been engaged in illegal elk hunting. Favret at first denied to police that he pulled out his gun during the incident, but when shown the images captured by Ochoa’s girlfriend, he said he didn’t remember doing so and told officers he was on pain medication. Ochoa, who identifies as Mexican-American, asked the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office to reopen the case, adding that the incident scared him enough that he skipped the wedding in the same neighborhood the next day.

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Title: Court delays decision on dismissal of Michael Flynn charges A federal appeals court on Friday stayed a decision ordering that a judge accept the Justice Department’s motion to drop its criminal case against fired national security adviser Michael Flynn. The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit issued an order that gives the former Army lieutenant general and the Justice Department 10 days to respond to Judge Emmet Sullivan’s petition Thursday for a rehearing by the full appeals court, the Washington Examiner reported. The filing also stated that the three-judge panel’s June 24 decision ordering Sullivan to grant the Justice Department’s motion to drop the charges against Flynn had been stayed “pending disposition of the petition for rehearing en banc,” which means by the full 11-member appellate court. Sullivan’s lawyers on Thursday argued that the 2-1 ruling by the three appellate court judges last month ordering him to drop the case was a “dramatic break from precedent that threatens the orderly administration of justice.” Sullivan asked for the full appellate court to review the panel’s decision. Flynn, who briefly served as President Trump’s national security adviser, was fired in February 2017 and then pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about discussing sanctions and a UN vote in December 2016 with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Flynn says he did not intentionally lie and the Justice Department said in May it would drop the case, finding FBI agents had no valid basis to interview Flynn days into Trump’s presidency. The Justice Department said it wanted to drop the case because of investigative misconduct. Transcripts of the calls between Flynn and Kislyak were released in late May, showing Flynn did discuss sanctions and the UN vote. In pleading guilty to lying to the FBI, Flynn agreed to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, which ultimately found no evidence that Trump’s campaign “colluded” with Russia. Flynn also avoided charges for admittedly working as an unregistered agent of Turkey and making false statements to the Justice Department about that work. Trump has praised Flynn and argued that the charges should be dropped.

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Title: Ghislaine Maxwell hid from media, not prosecutors: lawyers Ghislaine Maxwell wasn’t hiding from federal prosecutors when she disappeared for a year after Jeffrey Epstein’s arrest — she was just dodging the media, a court filing claimed Friday. Maxwell’s attorneys, arguing that she should be granted bond in her sex-trafficking case, painted the alleged madam as a victim, scapegoated by aggressive tabloids that sought to accuse her of Epstein’s crimes. “Ever since Epstein’s arrest, Ms. Maxwell has been at the center of a crushing onslaught of press articles, television specials, and social media posts painting her in the most damning light possible and prejudging her guilt,” her attorneys wrote in a response to federal prosecutors’ memo requesting that she be remanded before her trial. They pointed to a specific article in the British newspaper The Sun that pictured Maxwell on a wanted poster. “She has seen helicopters flying over her home and reporters hiding in the bushes,” they added. They argue that Maxwell dropped out of the public eye — and hid at a sprawling New Hampshire mansion — not to escape the law, but to hide from this “intrusive” media coverage. “Ms. Maxwell did not take these steps to hide from law enforcement or evade prosecution,” they wrote. “Instead, they were necessary measures that Ms. Maxwell was forced to take to protect herself, her family members, her friends and colleagues, and their children, from unrelenting and intrusive media coverage, threats, and irreparable reputational harm.” Her lawyers are requesting she be released on $5 million bond and that she turn over her travel documents as part of the deal. In a detention memo filed last week, prosecutors ask that she be remanded, arguing she’s an “extreme” flight risk who has more than $20 million in the bank and three passports. Maxwell’s attorneys also noted that the Brooklyn federal jail she’s locked up in has a current coronavirus outbreak — and she’s at risk of contracting the virus. Maxwell was arrested last week on a six-count indictment that accuses her of trafficking underage girls for Epstein to abuse and then lying about it under oath.

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Title: Suspect arrested in ‘unprovoked attack’ on Macy’s manager The 18-year-old black man charged in an “unprovoked,” caught-on-video assault of a white Macy’s manager in Michigan has been caught, according to a report. Damire Canell Palmer, who is charged with felony assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder in the June 15 attack at the Flint store, was in custody Thursday night, the Detroit News reported. He also was charged with misdemeanor retail fraud, according to the outlet, which cited a Michigan State Police background check. Macy’s surveillance footage allegedly shows the suspect walking around the store before he approaches and punches the 50-year-old manager in the head from behind as he worked in the men’s clothing section. The blow knocked the man to the floor, officials said. The video also allegedly shows Palmer continuing to hit the employee before the suspect leaves the store. Comments on social media suggested the manager made a racial slur before the attack, the Detroit News reported, though Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton said investigators failed to uncover evidence of provocation or racial comments. “This was an unprovoked attack on a Macy’s employee,” Leyton said June 26. “This behavior, as seen on the video, is unacceptable, it is criminal and it cannot be allowed. “We don’t believe any racial slur was made by the store manager, and even if there had been, it does not condone nor justify the assault by Mr. Palmer,” he added. Prosecutors said there was not enough evidence to support a hate-crime charge. If convicted, Palmer faces up to 10 years in prison. Authorities do not plan to charge his brother, who allegedly filmed the attack, since they don’t believe he committed a crime, a source has told The Post.

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Title: Trump cancels New Hampshire rally due to Tropical Storm Fay WASHINGTON — President Trump has been forced to cancel an outdoor rally scheduled for New Hampshire this Saturday, his campaign blaming “safety reasons” from Tropical Storm Fay. In a statement, Trump 2020 communications director Tim Murtaugh said the rally would be rescheduled. “The rally scheduled for Saturday in Portsmouth, New Hampshire has been postponed for safety reasons because of Tropical Storm Fay. It will be rescheduled and a new date will be announced soon,” Murtaugh said. Press secretary Kayleigh McEnany also told reporters aboard Air Force One that the Portsmouth rally would likely be delayed by “a week or two.” A storm warning is in effect for much of the Northeast, with Tropical Storm Fay expected to make landfall on the New Jersey coast sometime Friday afternoon. Several coastal towns in Delaware and New Jersey have already been flooded and damaging winds of up to 60 mph have been recorded. The rally was slated to be held on the tarmac at Portsmouth International Airport due to concerns that the coronavirus would spread through the crowd, and attendees were told to wear face coverings. Trump himself tweeted, “With Tropical Storm Fay heading towards the Great State of New Hampshire this weekend, we are forced to reschedule our Portsmouth, New Hampshire Rally at the Portsmouth International Airport at Pease. Stay safe, we will be there soon!” Air Force One was going to be the backdrop of the rally, Fox News reported, with construction at the airport already well underway when the rally was canceled. The New Hampshire event would have been the president’s first event since his event in Tulsa, Oklahoma, rally last month made headlines when it was poorly attended. The postponement of the event is sure to come as a blow to the Trump campaign, which has been desperate to get the president back on the road after the coronavirus pandemic forced him to suspend most of his re-election events.

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Title: Trump hints at pardon for longtime adviser Roger Stone President Trump on Friday hinted that he’s considering a presidential pardon for his longtime adviser Roger Stone, who is due to report to a federal prison on Tuesday to serve a 40-month sentence. “I’ll be looking at it. I think Roger Stone was very unfairly treated, as were many people, and in the meantime Comey and all these guys are walking around, including Biden and Obama, because we caught them spying on my campaign. Who would have believed that one?” the president said as he departed DC for events in Florida, repeating his claim that the former administration was out to get him. He was referring to former FBI Director James Comey, former Vice President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama. Stone said a day earlier he was “praying” that Trump would grant him clemency or a pardon. Stone told Fox News he had not had any formal contact with the White House on a potential presidential pardon or commutation of his sentence. “I think I’ll be the last person to know. He hates leaks, and he hates to be told what to do. I have instructed my lawyers not to contact the lawyers at the White House,” he told Fox. “The president, who I’ve known for 40 years, has an incredible sense of fairness. He is aware that the people trying to destroy Michael Flynn, now trying to destroy me, are the people trying to destroy him.” When asked whether he hoped the president would offer him clemency, he said, “I’m praying he does” so that he could avoid prison. Stone was sentenced in February by DC federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson to more than three years in prison after being convicted in November 2019 on seven counts of obstruction, witness tampering and making false statements to Congress. He appealed his conviction and continued to deny that he had done anything wrong. Stone, who fears he will die in prison, and his lawyers filed motions to delay his date to report to a federal prison until Sept. 30, and also filed a motion for home confinement. Earlier this week, Twitter and Instagram suspended his accounts for a post in which he appeared to facetiously threaten Jackson.

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Title: Trump says China trade deal unlikely after coronavirus pandemic President Trump said Friday that brokering a trade deal with China is unlikely due to its botched handling of the coronavirus pandemic. “I don’t think about it now,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. “The relationship with China has been severely damaged,” he said. “They could have stopped the plague, they could have stopped it, they didn’t stop it. They stopped it from going into the remaining portions of China from Wuhan province. They could have stopped the plague, they didn’t.” When a reporter pressed Trump on whether there would be a new trade deal, Trump said, “Honestly, I have many other things in mind.” The virus has sickened more than 3 million Americans, killing 133,000 and leaving tens of millions at least temporarily unemployed. Trump is considering many anti-China policies, including banning the TikTok social media platform, which is hugely popular among US teens, but which officials claim could pipe data to China’s Communist leaders. Before the pandemic, Trump waged an aggressive trade war with China, ramping up tariffs on a wide range of goods to force China to agree to a deal that protects US intellectual property and removes Chinese policies that favor domestic companies. As COVID-19 began to spread to other countries, a large Chinese delegation headed by Vice Premier Liu He visited the White House on Jan. 15 to sign a “phase one” trade deal. The phase-one deal paused escalation of tariffs, committed China to buy US goods, including agricultural products, and recognized recent Chinese steps to allow more foreign investment and protect intellectual property.

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Title: Mysterious clothing thief turns out to be neighborhood kitty It was nearly the purrfect crime. A Louisiana couple called police when they repeatedly found someone else’s threads strewn around their yard — only to learn that the culprit was their own kleptomaniac kitty. The mysterious ‘tail’ began last month, when Heather Bardi, of New Orleans, first spotted a stranger’s gray tank top on her patio chair, along with other duds in her backyard, she told Kennedy News and Media. “I found one sock in the backyard which really freaked me out initially because I didn’t know it was the cat and thought a prowler that had some laundry stuck to a leg had climbed in,” Bardi, 36, told the outlet. Over the next few weeks, she also discovered bikinis and torn boxer shorts eerily laid out in her yard. The cops were called, and stopped by periodically to check on Bardi’s welfare, but were otherwise stumped. The case busted wide open on on June 25, when Bardi spotted the suspect red-pawed — 3-year-old Admiral Galacticat, with a sock in his mouth. “When I saw him it was like I had an epiphany, I was excited to finally figure out what was happening,” she said. “I was also feeling kind of embarrassed because my husband had called the cops and filed a report and had them drive by periodically to make sure there wasn’t a prowler, at least not a human one,” she said. Home surveillance footage showed her gasp as the cat burglar scampered across her front yard. She soon learned the felonious feline had been making a habit of slipping into neighbors’ homes or cars. “When he saw me walk out the first time I caught him I knew he was up to no good because he looked at me, dropped the sock and then ran next door underneath my neighbor’s truck,” she said. After she posted the now-viral video Facebook, neighbors came to claim their belongings. And Bardi even came up with a motive: Admiral Galacticat probably grew restless during the state’s coronavirus lockdown, turning to a life of crime to keep himself entertained, she said. “I’m so glad I had it on video because I had been telling all my friends about what was going on,” she added. “I didn’t think anyone would believe it was the cat if I didn’t have proof.”

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Title: Drug remdesivir lowered death risk for COVID-19 patients by 62% The antiviral drug remdesivir reduces the risk of death for severely ill coronavirus patients by 62 percent, the company that makes it said Friday. Gilead Sciences said the use of the medication was linked to “significantly improved clinical recovery” in a study of hundreds of clinical trial patients, which will be presented to scientists at the upcoming Virtual COVID-19 Conference, according to CNBC. The drugmaker said it looked at data from 312 patients enrolled in its phase three trial and compared them to 818 severely sick patients worldwide in “a real-world retrospective cohort” who received standard care during the same time period. The analysis shows that 7.6 percent of patients treated with remdesivir died compared to 12.5 percent of patients who didn’t receive the treatment, according to Gilead. It also shows that 74.4 percent of patients who received remdesivir recovered by day 14 compared to 59 percent of patients who received standard care, the company said. Experts agreed the findings were compelling but also noted that other factors may complicate the results. “While not as vigorous as a randomized controlled trial, this analysis importantly draws from a real-world setting and serves as an important adjunct to clinical trial data, adding to our collective understanding of this virus and reflecting the extraordinary pace of the ongoing pandemic,”  Dr. Susan Olender of Columbia University Irving Medical Center told CNBC. Reps from Gilead agreed that more studies on the drug are needed. “We are working to broaden our understanding of the full utility of remdesivir,” Gilead’s chief medical officer, Dr. Merdad Parsey, said in a statement. “To address the urgency of the continuing pandemic, we are sharing data with the research community as quickly as possible with the goal of providing transparent and timely updates on new developments with remdesivir.” Shares of Gilead rose more than 2 percent Friday after the company announced the results of the study. Last month, the firm announced the much-anticipated pricing for the drug, saying it would charge the typical patient with private health insurance $3,120. Gilead has also released other data from its own clinical trials that show a faster recovery time and a small clinical benefit.

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Title: Bolivia’s president has tested positive for coronavirus LA PAZ – Bolivia’s President Jeanine Anez said on Thursday she has tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Anez said in a tweet she was “well” and continuing to work while in isolation. “Together, we will come out of this,” she said. The Bolivian government confirmed that at least seven ministers, including its health minister, had tested positive and were either undergoing treatment or recuperating at home. Anez said she had conducted a test given that many of her team had fallen ill. “I feel well, I feel strong, I am going to keep working remotely from my isolation, and I want to thank all the Bolivians who are working to help us in this health crisis,” she said. Bolivia is due to hold general elections on Sept. 6. The elections were originally planned for May but delayed due to the pandemic. Political turmoil gripped the country last October when a disputed election led to widespread protests that eventually toppled longtime leftist leader Evo Morales. Anez, a conservative former senator, assumed the interim president role in the political vacuum and initially said she would not run for full office, but later threw her hat in the ring. Rival candidate and former President Jorge Tuto Quiroga, who is running again, said it was “indispensable” for Anez to be in full health and working towards the democratic transition. Other leaders around the world also have contracted the virus. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, 55, spent three days in intensive care sick with COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus, while Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro confirmed on Wednesday he had tested positive. Bolivia, a landlocked Andean nation of over 11.5 million people has registered more than 42,000 confirmed cases of the disease and 1,500 deaths and is one of the worst affected countries per capita in the world.

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Title: Trump threatens school funding over 'radical left indoctrination' WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday ramped up his attacks on US schools, threatening to remove federal funding or tax exemptions for institutions promoting “radical left indoctrination.” In a series of tweets aboard Air Force One shortly before arriving in Miami, the president fired his latest salvo in an escalating war with the nation’s schools as his administration pushes to have them fully reopen by the fall amid a worsening coronavirus pandemic. “Too many Universities and School Systems are about Radical Left Indoctrination, not Education,” Trump said in a tweet. “Therefore, I am telling the Treasury Department to re-examine their Tax-Exempt Status and/or Funding, which will be taken away if this Propaganda or Act Against Public Policy continues. Our children must be Educated, not Indoctrinated!” he continued. In his Independence Day speech at Mount Rushmore last week, Trump pointed to leftist ideology gripping the American education system as the reason for nationwide assaults targeted at monuments to historical figures. “The violent mayhem we have seen in the streets of cities that are run by liberal Democrats, in every case, is the predictable result of years of extreme indoctrination and bias in education, journalism, and other cultural institutions. “Against every law of society and nature, our children are taught in school to hate their own country, and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes, but that were villains. The radical view of American history is a web of lies — all perspective is removed, every virtue is obscured, every motive is twisted, every fact is distorted, and every flaw is magnified until the history is purged and the record is disfigured beyond all recognition,” he said. Last Friday, the president doubled down on his threats to cut funding to public schools that continue to educate students through virtual classes as the pandemic worsens, calling it a “terrible” alternative. “Schools must be open in the Fall. If not open, why would the Federal Government give Funding? It won’t!!!” he tweeted. The president said he would put pressure on the nation’s governors to reopen schools as the number of coronavirus infections in the US continues to hit record highs, while also blasting new guidelines from the CDC as “very impractical.”

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Title: Maryland governor blasts Pelosi over statue toppling comments WASHINGTON — Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan says House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has “lost touch” with her native Baltimore after she refused to condemn the toppling of a statue in the city over the weekend. In a Thursday evening tweet, the Republican governor blasted Pelosi’s indifference to the destruction of a statue of Christopher Columbus on July 4 by activists, telling reporters, “People will do what they do.” “It’s disappointing that Speaker Pelosi has lost touch with the Baltimore community that her family served,” Hogan wrote on Twitter. Pelosi’s father, Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., served as mayor of Baltimore from 1947 to 1959, followed by her brother Thomas L. J. D’Alesandro III, who held the job from 1967 to 1971. “While efforts towards peaceful change are welcome, there is no place in Maryland for lawlessness, vandalism, and destruction of public property,” Hogan continued. “Our state and nation need room for more constructive dialogue, not destruction. We will not let mobs ‘do what they do.’ They do not represent Baltimore,” he added, referring to Pelosi’s remarks. Pelosi (D-Calif.) was indifferent when asked about the toppling of the statue in Little Italy by protesters who dragged it to the edge of nearby Inner Harbor and threw it into the water, according to local media reports. “If the community doesn’t want the statue there, the statue shouldn’t be there,” said the Democratic lawmaker, 80, skipping over the rule of law. “I don’t care that much about the statues.” Pelosi’s nonchalant stance toward the destruction of statues around the country in the wake of George Floyd’s death stands in stark contrast to President Trump, who has warned he would pursue hefty criminal sentences for offenders. Baltimore Mayor Bernard C. Jack Young also said he would not tolerate the destruction of the statue of the 15th-century Italian explorer who colonized the Americas — a figure many activists now view as offensive. “If we identify them, they will be brought to justice,” Young said, according to the Baltimore Sun.

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Title: Hong Kong to suspend all schools due to spike in coronavirus cases Advertisement HONG KONG – Hong Kong’s Education Bureau on Friday announced the suspension of all schools from Monday after a sharp rise in locally transmitted coronavirus cases fueled fears of renewed community spread. Schools in the Asian financial hub have been mostly shut since January, with many having switched to online learning and lessons by conference call. Many international schools are already on summer break. Hong Kong reported 38 new coronavirus cases on Friday, edging down from Thursday’s 42 but broadly in line with a sharp increase that the city registered over the past three days. Authorities said 32 of the new cases were locally transmitted after the city reported mostly imported cases for months. The total number of cases since late January now stands at 1,404. Seven people have died. Some of the recent cases involved students and parents, said Education Secretary Kevin Yeung. “Many parents are worried about the sudden growth of local transmission cases in the past few days,” said Mimi Tsang, mother of 12-year-old student Melony. However the early suspension comes as the switch to online learning at home has frustrated teachers, parents and students and exacerbated the learning gap between the haves and havenots. More than two thirds of parents, regardless of income, believe their children have difficulty learning at home, according to a February survey by the Education University of Hong Kong. A survey by The Society for Community Organization (SoCO) of nearly 600 low-income students shows more than 70 percent don’t have computers and 28 percent have no broadband. The early closure of schools would this time not have much impact on teaching, students and parents said, as it comes just ahead of the summer holidays. “We just had one more week of classes to go, so I don’t think there is too much difference,” said 14-year-old student Ryan Chan.

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Title: Clarence Thomas' wife opposes town's Black Lives Matter sign Advertisement   Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the prominent conservative activist married to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, recently denounced a DC-area Black Lives Matter banner. Black Lives Matter is a “Trojan Horse” for “mob rule” and “cultural revolution,” Ginni Thomas wrote in a June 24 email to Clifton, Virginia, officials, the Washington Post reports. Thomas, who is white but whose husband is the only black Supreme Court justice, is influential in her own right in DC and in White House meetings has pushed President Trump to pick more conservative aides. Thomas objected to a banner that reads “Welcome to Clifton where Black Lives Matter,” which was installed after the killing of George Floyd by Minnesota police. Unrest following Floyd’s death included arson and widespread looting near the White House. “BLM is a bit of a dangerous Trojan Horse and they are catching well-meaning people into dangerous posturing that can invite mob rule and property looting,” Ginni Thomas wrote in her email. “Let’s not be tricked into joining cause with radical extremists seeking to foment a cultural revolution because they hate America.” Clifton is a small town that’s about a 45-minute drive southwest of Washington. The town’s mayor, independent William Hollaway, told the Washington Post his decision to hang the banner was “the biggest controversy we’ve seen in many years.” Ginni Thomas did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Black Lives Matter is both a diverse social movement and the name of a national organization — whose leaders include co-founder Patrisse Cullors, who described herself and fellow co-founder Alicia Garza as “trained Marxists.”

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Title: Buffalo removes Christopher Columbus statue to prevent vandalism A statue of Christopher Columbus was removed from Columbus Park on Buffalo’s West Side at the request of an Italian American group to prevent vandalism and demonstrate how change can be peaceful in the community. Don Alessi, past president of the Federation of Italian-American Societies of Western New York, said the Columbus statue would be relocated to another site in the upstate city, the Buffalo News reported. The federation hoped to replace the statue with another that will honor Italian immigrants, and Mayor Byron W. Brown said the park’s name would also likely be changed to something that would honor those of Italian heritage. Alessi said the federation was considering “a number of locations” for the Columbus statue, and that an “indoor, museum-like” location was a possibility. Alessi added that moving the statue would not necessarily end the controversy over the 15th-century explorer. “We’re not just going to put it another place down the street, because then it’s just relocating it to another place where there’s a potential for controversy,” Alessi told the paper. Brown praised the move. “I thank the Federation of Italian-American Societies of Western New York for their courage in making this decision,” he said. Alessi and Brown spoke at a Friday morning news conference at the park at Niagara and Porter avenues. Brown said the Columbus statue had been dedicated to the city by the Italian federation and was returned at the federation’s request. “With all that’s going on in the nation, with all that’s going on in the city, this should not be a distraction for the very, very important work that Mayor Brown has to do with regard to reconciling the differences in the city,” Alessi said. Columbus, among the first Europeans to have contact with the Americas, is a source of pride for many Italian Americans. But others castigate him for being a symbol of European colonialism. Several statues commemorating the explorer had already been taken down prior to Friday’s action in Columbus Park. Last weekend in Baltimore, a statue of Columbus was taken down by protesters and thrown into that city’s Inner Harbor. “We saw what happened in Baltimore, we saw what happened in Boston and other places,” Alessi said. “We don’t want it to be thrown in the Niagara River, because that would be an insult. We don’t want to be insulted.” The city of Bridgeport, Conn., also removed a statue of Columbus from the waterfront Seaside Park this week to prevent vandalism. A statue of Columbus was taken down in Columbus, Ohio, earlier this month amid renewed criticism over the legacy of the explorer. In New York, the NYPD has been guarding the statue of Columbus in Columbus Circle as protesters have toppled others in cities across the US.

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Title: Supermarket worker collapses in front of Prince Charles: video This is the startling moment a British supermarket worker went down like a sack of potatoes in front of Prince Charles. The employee of the Asda retailer was speaking with the Prince of Wales at a supermarket distribution center in Bristol on Thursday when he began swaying before dropping to the ground, the Independent reported. Charles, 71, reached out to the man but not in time to stop him from plunging backward. “Dear, oh dear,” he said as people rushed to help the worker. It was unclear why the man fell, but he soon recovered and met Charles again. “Thank you very much, sir,” the man told the royal, chuckling. Charles and his wife, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, visited the center to thank workers for their efforts during the coronavirus pandemic. “I think it’s fantastic that the prince and duchess have taken the time out to come and meet colleagues,” said Chris Tilly, general manager of the center. “Every single colleague that they saw they thanked for what they had done during the last 14 weeks, which I was truly humbled by,” Tilly said. Charles, the heir to the British throne, contracted COVID-19 in late March and self-isolated at Clarence House in Scotland.

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Title: Fire spews from tree in Maine after being hit by lightning As if the coronavirus pandemic and murder hornets weren’t enough, 2020 has now given us trees spewing flames. Firefighters in Maine responding to a blaze reported in Wales on Wednesday were shocked to discover a large tree with flames emanating from the length of its trunk after an apparent lightning strike. An incredible 15-second clip posted by the Wales Fire Department shows the entire cavity of the tree on fire after a bolt of lightning is believed to have “traveled up into the trunk,” department officials said. “Well that’s the coolest thing I’ve seen in a while,” one reply read. “Glad everyone is OK.” But another commenter said the fiery tree looked straight out of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” while another claimed it was proof that the “apocalypse” is indeed coming. The smoldering tree was extinguished Wednesday, WHDH reports. The fire, which started following several storms that tore through the area, was curtailed from spreading due to rain, according to WMTW. “This is the craziest thing,” a Bangor-based radio station, WHCF, wrote on Facebook. “They say it got hit by lightning and set the inside of this tree on fire. You gotta admit 2020 does not disappoint in the ‘never saw that one coming’ department.”

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Title: Ghislaine Maxwell lawyer calls her federal indictment 'meritless' A lawyer for Jeffrey Epstein’s accused accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell called the criminal case against her “meritless” in a recent court filing — the first time her legal team has addressed the charges against her. In the Thursday night filing, Colorado-based lawyer Laura Menninger blasted federal prosecutors in New York for bringing a six-count indictment accusing Maxwell of sex trafficking and perjury. “The United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York on June 29, 2020 caused a meritless indictment to be issued against Ms. Maxwell,” Menninger wrote in the filing. The filing is in response to a civil case brought by an unidentified woman, Jane Doe, who claims she was abused by Epstein as a teenager after being groomed by Maxwell and the multimillionaire financier. The woman alleges the pair approached her at a summer camp in Michigan when she 13 years old. Epstein allegedly sexually abused her several times over the course of a number of years, according to the complaint. “Maxwell also regularly facilitated Epstein’s abuse of Doe and was frequently present when it occurred,” the woman’s complaint states. Maxwell has denied every allegation in the suit. “Ms. Maxwell’s denials of factual allegations shall be interpreted the same as pleading not guilty to the various counts in any criminal indictment,” Menninger wrote in the filing. The former socialite was arrested last week at a sprawling New Hampshire mansion and hit with the indictment. She’s expected to be arraigned on the charges next Tuesday.

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Title: Chinese virologist flees after accusing Beijing of COVID-19 cover-up A respected Chinese virologist who says she did some of the earliest research into COVID-19 last year has accused Beijing of lying about when it learned of the deadly virus and engaging in an extensive cover-up of her work, according to a new report. In a new interview with Fox News, Dr. Li-Meng Yan says her supervisors at the Hong Kong School of Public Health, a reference laboratory for the World Health Organization, silenced her when she sounded the alarm about human-to-human transmission in December last year. In April, Yan fled Hong Kong and escaped to America to raise awareness about the pandemic, the report said. She told Fox News she is now living in hiding in the US and fears for her life. “The reason I came to the US is because I deliver the message of the truth of COVID,” Yan said of the virus that has so far infected 12.3 million people worldwide and killed 555,000. Yan said her supervisors at the laboratory asked her in December to study an usual cluster of SARS-like cases coming out of mainland China. She was approached by a scientist friend at the Centers for Disease Control in China on Dec. 31 who warned her about human-to-human transmission, which she flagged with her boss, who “just nodded.” On Jan. 9, the WHO released a statement saying Chinese authorities informed them that this wasn’t possible, claiming the disease “does not transmit readily between people.” “I already know that would happen because I know the corruption among this kind of international organization like the WHO to China government, and to China Communist Party,” she said. “So basically … I accept it but I don’t want this misleading information to spread to the world.” Yan said her boss at the lab warned her to “keep silent” when she raised her research with him again in mid-January, and told her: “We will get in trouble and we’ll be disappeared.” The international community has called for an extensive investigation into the origins of the virus that was first reported in Wuhan last year. China’s Communist government has refused to let outside investigators into the country. President Trump this week officially withdrew the US from the WHO, citing the organization’s unacceptable response to the origins of the outbreak. The Hong Kong School of Public Health told Fox News that Yan is no longer an employee.

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Title: Voter registration form mailed to family's long-dead cat Look what the postman dragged in. An Atlanta family was shocked to find a voter registration form arrive in the mail — for a pet cat that died 12 years ago. The application that showed up Wednesday at the home of Ron and Carol Tims was pre-printed with the name of “Cody Tims,” according to a photo posted online by Fox5 Atlanta. “How did this happen? It’s not reality, he’s a cat and he’s been dead for a long time,” Carol told the station. Carol described the late feline — whose ashes are kept in a green container — as a “great cat, indoor and outdoor, loved his family, loved his neighborhood.” “He was 18 and a half when he passed away,” she said. The suspicious mailer also has the family wondering what other critters are receiving applications to vote ahead of November’s hotly contested election between President Trump and presumptive Democratic challenger Joe Biden. “There’s a huge push but if they’re trying to register cats, I’m not sure who else they’re trying to register,” Carol said. “I’m not sure if they’re trying to register dogs, mice, snakes.” The Georgia Secretary of State’s Office issued a statement denying any responsibility for the registration effort and blaming political forces located outside the Peach State. “Third-party groups all over the country are targeting Georgia to help register qualified individuals,” the statement said. “This group makes you wonder what these out-of-town activists are really doing. Make no mistake about it, this office is dedicated to investigating all types of fraud.” Officials also said that if alive, Cody — who Carol said was a “Democat” — would never have been allowed to vote, because he was never issued a license or state ID card, Fox5 said.

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Title: AOC tweets support for Goya boycott after CEO praises Trump Goya Foods faced swift backlash supported by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other Latino leaders after CEO Robert Unanue praised President Trump on Thursday — but a defiant Unanue defended his free speech rights and refused to apologize. “We’re all truly blessed at the same time to have a leader like President Trump, who is a builder,” Unanue said at an event in the Rose Garden at the White House, where the president signed an executive order on the “White House Hispanic Prosperity Initiative.” Twitter exploded moments later, with users reminding Unanue of Trump’s history of controversial comments, such as calling some Mexican illegal immigrants “rapists” in 2015, and hardline policies toward illegal immigration from Mexico. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have a lot of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people,” Trump said at Trump Tower when he announced his candidacy for president that June. “Oh look, it’s the sound of me Googling ‘how to make your own Adobo,’” tweeted AOC, who is of Puerto Rican descent, referring to one of Goya’s popular seasonings. “Get yourself friends like these: this tweet wasn’t up for TWO MINUTES when my friend hit me up with the recipe. (Their note: ‘the ginger is controversial, but worth it’),” she added, retweeting a friend’s adobo recipe. “@GoyaFoods has been a staple of so many Latino households for generations. Now their CEO, Bob Unanue, is praising a president who villainizes and maliciously attacks Latinos for political gain. Americans should think twice before buying their products. #Goyaway,” tweeted Julian Castro, HUD secretary in the Obama administration and a former Democratic presidential candidate, who is of Mexican descent. But not all Latino public figures were on board. “Creepy cancel culture will find #BoycottGoya difficult & not supported by most Latinos-certainly not many over 21. Company is intertwined in Hispanic life. In urging Latino unity, my dad used to say the only real difference between we hispanics was the color of our (Goya) beans,” tweeted TV personality Geraldo Rivera, whose father was Puerto Rican. Unanue had also announced Thursday that the family-owned food giant was donating a million cans of chickpeas and another million pounds of food to help relieve shortages caused by the fast-spreading coronavirus pandemic. A day later, he told Fox News he had no intention of apologizing. “We were part of a commission called the White House Hispanic Prosperity Initiative and they called on us to be there to see how we could help opportunities within the economic and educational realm for prosperity among Hispanics and among the United States,” Unanue said. Unanue called the boycott, which was trending on Twitter, “suppression of speech,” and noted that he had previously been invited to the White House by the Obama administration during Hispanic Heritage Month. “So, you’re allowed to talk good or to praise one president, but you’re not allowed to aid in economic and educational prosperity? And you make a positive comment and all of a sudden, it is not acceptable,” Unanue asked. Goya was founded in Manhattan in 1936 by Don Prudencio Unanue and his wife, Carolina, immigrants from Spain, and calls itself the largest Hispanic-owned food company in the US.

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Title: Retired Army general confesses to sexually abusing daughter A retired two-star Army major general has confessed to sexually assaulting his daughter in the late 1980s, according to reports. Maj. Gen. James Grazioplene, whose 49-year-old daughter, Jennifer Elmore, accused him in 2015 of repeatedly raping and molesting her as a child, pleaded guilty Wednesday to aggravated sexual battery in a Virginia courtroom, CNN reports. Grazioplene, who had been jailed for the last 18 months, was expected to be released Wednesday and will now serve 20 years on probation as part of a plea deal, his daughter’s attorney said. “It’s a reflection of that fact that Jennifer cares more about the truth than the punishment,” attorney Ryan Guilds told CNN in a text. Grazioplene, who retired in 2005, was arrested in December 2018 after being indicted by a Virginia grand jury on charges including rape, incest and aggravated sexual battery involving his daughter, according to court documents cited by Military.com. The alleged sexual assaults reportedly took place between August 1987 and May 1988. “From Jennifer’s perspective, it was a bittersweet victory but certainly a victory,” Guilds told Military.com. “This has been a long journey for Jennifer, and this is the result of her willingness and courage to come forward.” Army officials investigated Elmore’s claims for two years before moving toward a trial in 2017, but the case was dismissed by a military judge after the US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces ruled in a separate case that there should be a five-year statute of limitations on rape allegations, the Washington Post reported. Grazioplene said the charges he faced were “false and incorrect” when reached by the newspaper in September 2018, months before it published a lengthy account by Elmore, who said she was first molested by her father when she was just 3 years old. A grand jury in Virginia — where there’s no statute of limitation on rape charges — indicted Grazioplene in December 2018. He was arrested in Virginia four days later, the Washington Post reported. Elmore, whose birthday was Wednesday, testified in court that her father took her innocence by acting on “whatever sick pleasures” he desired, CNN reports. “I will spend a lifetime putting back the shattered pieces you left behind,” Elmore told her father. Elmore’s mother and Grazioplene’s wife, Ann Marie Grazioplene, also attended Wednesday’s hearing. “Jennifer, happy birthday,” Elmore told CNN her mom said. “I love you.”

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Title: Kim Jong Un's sister says another summit with Trump is unlikely The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said Friday that she doesn’t expect her brother to hold another summit with President Trump – unless Washington makes a “decisive change” in approach and offers something in return. Amid speculation that he might seek another summit with Kim if it could help his re-election chances in November, Trump said this week he would “certainly” meet with him again “if I thought it was going to be helpful.” But Kim Yo Jong threw cold water on the prospect Friday, saying in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency that “there is no need for us to sit across the US right now,” according to Agence France-Presse. If a summit was held, she added in a swipe at Trump, “it is too obvious that it will only be used as boring boasting coming from someone’s pride.” Denuclearization, Kim Yo Jong added, was “not possible at this point” — and could only take place along with “irreversible, simultaneous, major steps” by the US, which she emphasized did not refer to the lifting of sanctions. She did not elaborate, but 28,500 US troops are deployed in South Korea to defend it against the rogue regime to the north. Washington also has an array of military assets in Japan and the wider Pacific region. Kim Yo Jong didn’t completely shut the door, however, saying, “You never know.” “That’s because a surprise thing may still happen, depending upon the judgment and decision between the two top leaders,” she said, adding that if there is a need for summit talks, it is an American need, while for Pyongyang, it is “unpractical and does not serve us at all.” Kim Yo Jong, who is considered to be her brother’s closest adviser, was recently confirmed as his top official for inter-Korean affairs. Trump and Kim Jong Un have met three times since embarking on high-stakes nuclear diplomacy in 2018. But talks have faltered since their second summit in February 2019, when Washington rejected Pyongyang’s demands for major sanctions relief in exchange for a partial surrender of its nuclear capability. “We would like to make it clear that it does not necessarily mean the denuclearization is not possible. But what we mean is that it is not possible at this point of time,” Kim Yo Jong said Friday. With Post wires

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Title: Serbia bans mass gatherings after virus lockdown protests BELGRADE, Serbia — Serbian authorities on Thursday banned gatherings of more than 10 people in the capital, Belgrade, after two nights of violent clashes between police and thousands of demonstrators protesting coronavirus lockdown measures. Thousands of people defied the ban to stage a sit down protest Thursday night in front of Parliament, along with other peaceful gatherings in towns elsewhere in Serbia. Many protesters wore white T-shirts with the inscription, “Sit Down, Don’t Be Set Up” — referring to widespread claims that the violence the previous nights was staged by hooligan groups close to the authorities to smear the opposition groups’ image. “This is how the protest should really look like, without their mad dogs present,” said one of the main opposition leaders, Dragan Djilas. Despite no police intervention, there were several skirmishes between peaceful protesters and the far-right groups, but no clashes like the violence of the previous two nights. Serbia’s government crisis team said the restrictions imposed Thursday were intended to prevent the virus’ further spread following two nights of clashes, during which few people wore face masks. In addition to limiting gatherings, businesses in closed spaces, such as cafes, shopping malls or shops, were ordered to operate shorter hours. “The health system in Belgrade is close to breaking up,” Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said. “That is why I can’t understand what we saw last night and the night before.” The clashes followed an announcement from President Aleksandar Vucic that further lockdown measures were likely as the outbreak in the country was spiraling out of control, especially in Belgrade, where 80 percent of new cases were recorded. At least 17,342 cases and 352 deaths have been recorded throughout Serbia. Although the new government measures passed Thursday don’t include an originally planned weekend curfew, the limit on gatherings effectively means a ban on protests. After initially handling the pandemic relatively well, Vucic and his government have been accused of allowing the crisis to spin out of control in order to hold a June 21 election that tightened his grip on power. Opponents blame the autocratic president for contributing to the large spike in deaths and new cases after he entirely lifted previous very tight lockdown measures. Mass gatherings at soccer and tennis matches and at nightclubs were allowed despite warnings by experts that this could lead to a spike in infections. Over the previous two evenings, rock-throwing demonstrators fought running battles with special police forces, who used tear gas, armored vehicles and horses to disperse them. Both protests started peacefully before far-right nationalist groups started hurling objects at police. The US Embassy said in a statement Thursday it was “deeply concerned” by the violence. “We condemn all violence, including what appeared to us to be coordinated attacks on police seemingly intended to provoke overreactions, as well as what appeared to the use of excessive force by police,” it said. Dozens of people were injured in the two days of clashes in Belgrade and other cities. Serbia’s police chief, Vladimir Rebic, said 118 police officers were injured and 153 protesters were detained. “Such violence is inadmissible and police will use all means to stop it,” Rebic said in a statement. Rights watchdog Amnesty International, however, blamed the police for applying “heavy-handed measures” against the demonstrators. “Images of Serbian police firing tear gas and stun grenades indiscriminately into the crowd and of protesters and bystanders being charged by mounted police and beaten by police in riot gear, raise serious concerns,” Amnesty International’s Balkans researcher Jelena Sesar said in a statement. Videos on social media appeared to show police severely beating up protesters. In one, a protester was seen being hit and kicked by several officers and dumped on the sidewalk, seemingly unconscious. The authenticity of the videos could not be independently verified. Under apparent pressure from the protesters, the Serbian president backtracked Wednesday on his plan to implement a weekend curfew, claiming the measure could not be carried out without proclaiming a nationwide state of emergency. In an Instagram post on Thursday — from inside the plane taking him on an official visit to France — Vucic said the state will curb unrest and urged his followers not to confront violent demonstrators. “I promised that we will know how to preserve peace and stability despite criminal hooligan violent attacks that have shocked us all,” he said. Vucic has accused foreign intelligence services of being behind the unrest. He has described the protests as “political” and aimed at weakening Serbia in its talks with Kosovo, a former province whose 2008 declaration of independence Belgrade does not recognize. Although Vucic stopped short of identifying the alleged foreign spy agencies, tabloids under his control accused pro-Russia far-right groups of fueling the violence. The Russian ambassador to Serbia on Thursday vehemently denied accusations that Moscow was behind the unrest.

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Title: West Virginia mailman admits to changing Democrat ballot requests A West Virginia letter carrier pleaded guilty to election fraud after admitting he changed the political affiliations from Democrat to Republican of people who had requested absentee ballots for the state’s primary, according to a report. Thomas Cooper, 47, of Dry Fork pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of attempted election fraud and one count of injury to the mail, BuzzFeed News reported. He faces up to eight years in prison, although prosecutors have agreed as part of the plea deal to call for a lesser sentence. The clerk of Pendleton County, where Cooper worked across three towns, discovered that eight primary election mail-in absentee requests appeared to have been altered using a black pen, according to the news outlet. Five requests had been changed so the voters’ ballot choice was switched from Democrat to Republican, but the clerk knew some of the voters were not Republicans. When she called them, they said they had used blue pens to request Democratic ballots. For the other three, the affiliation wasn’t changed, but the requests had been altered, according to BuzzFeed. “[I did it] as a joke,” Cooper told investigators about the postal “prank,” according to the complaint. “[I] don’t even know them.” His attorney Scott Curnutte said his client had engaged in a “silly lark.” “He is deeply sorry for the implications for our democratic process,” Curnutte told BuzzFeed. “It should be remembered, however, that the mail he altered were requests for ballots, not ballots themselves.” Some 2,236 votes were cast in Pendleton County for the June primary election, including 943 GOP ballots and 1,209 Democratic ones, according to data from the secretary of state.

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Title: Trump says Joe Biden ‘plagiarized’ his new economic plan President Trump on Friday said his Democratic rival Joe Biden “plagiarized” his new “Buy American” economic plan. “He plagiarized from me. But he can never pull it off — he likes plagiarizing,” Trump told reporters on the White House lawn. Biden also ran for president in 1988 but dropped out due to a plagiarism scandal. He was exposed for using without credit lines from British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock in one of his speeches. Trump did not specify what Biden plagiarized, but the barb came after observers noticed the similarities between Biden’s new economic messaging and Trump’s more established economic nationalism. On Thursday, Biden unveiled his economic plan with slogans including “Make it in America,” “Buy American” and “Stand up for America.” The plan calls for a boost in buying of domestic products and more research funding. Trump on Friday slammed other parts of Biden’s plan, which calls for investment in environmentally friendly products. Biden didn’t say if new spending in his plan requires higher taxes. “It’s very radical left, but he said the right things because he’s copying what I’ve done,” Trump said. “But the difference is he can’t do it. And he knows he’s not doing that. It can’t be the same because he’s raising taxes way too much. He’s raising everybody’s taxes. He’s also putting tremendous amounts of regulation back on. And those two things are two primary reasons that I created the greatest economy we’ve ever had. And now we’re creating it again.” Trump this year ended the North American Free Trade Agreement that Biden as a senator supported. Trump argued it was bad for American workers, and added anti-outsourcing provisions to the new US-Mexico-Canada agreement. As vice president, Biden hailed as “a game changer” Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations on a trade deal with Pacific countries. Trump killed the TPP talks, saying it could cost US jobs.

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Title: Utah protests erupt after 2 police officers cleared in suspect’s shooting death Utah Gov. Gary Herbert declared a state of emergency Thursday evening after “civil unrest” broke out in Salt Lake City in reaction to two police officers being cleared of wrongdoing in the May shooting death of an armed suspect. Images posted online showed dozens of handprints, in what appeared to be red paint, splattered across a sign at the entrance to the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office. The situation was declared an unlawful assembly after demonstrators started smashing windows at the DA’s office, The Deseret News of Salt Lake City reported. “It was my sincere hope that the protest tonight would remain peaceful as it has night after night,” policed Chief Mike Brown wrote on Twitter. “Sadly, as they began to break windows at @SLCountyDA office, we declared it an unlawful assembly.” Protesters used red paint, posters and chalk to leave messages at the District Attorney's office. We have a crew covering the demonstrations and will continue to bring live updates https://t.co/JNyhOThePn pic.twitter.com/e8IyuBOvvN — FOX 13 News Utah (@fox13) July 10, 2020 “We are willing to allow some vandalism but then they returned and started to breach windows,” Brown told KSL-TV. “We just cannot allow that to happen.” It was District Attorney Sim Gill who announced earlier in the day that officers Neil Iversen and Keith Fortuna would not be prosecuted for the death of Bernardo Palacios-Carbajal, whose death May 23 – after being shot as much as 15 times by police – has become the focus of the state’s protesters opposing police brutality. Live footage from our crew in #SLC, as police try to contain protesters pic.twitter.com/An6t040gYR — FOX 13 News Utah (@fox13) July 10, 2020 Peaceful protests had been held in Salt Lake City for weeks in anticipation of a decision in the case, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. Among the red handprints outside the DA’s office was a flyer with an image of Palacios-Carbajal. The governor’s emergency declaration closed the grounds of Utah’s Statehouse to the public until at least next Tuesday, FOX 13 of Salt Lake City reported. Vandalism had occurred outside the Statehouse during a previous protest following the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the station reported. BREAKING NEWS: @GovHerbert declares a state of emergency due to "unrest" which CLOSES the Capitol grounds to the public and deploys @UtahDPS resources to assist @slcpd. @fox13 #utpol #SLC #Utah pic.twitter.com/8fT6jpM8fO — Ben Winslow (@BenWinslow) July 10, 2020 According to FOX 13, Thursday’s unrest began with chalk and paint messages outside Gill’s office around 6:40 p.m. local time, evolving into a “declaration of unlawful assembly” around 8 p.m. as Salt Lake City police in riot gear struggled to break up the crowd. About 75 officers were deployed to the area by 8:25 pm, the station reported. Later, protesters sprayed some police officers with pepper spray, with Hebert’s emergency declaration following about an hour later. Soon after, the crowd had dispersed and police declared the DA’s office a crime scene, FOX 13 reported. In May, the responding officers had seen Palacios-Carbajal at the Utah Village Motel and chased him after someone called police to report an apparent armed robbery, authorities said. They yelled at him to stop and drop the weapon, Gill said. Video footage shows Palacios-Carbajal picking up what the officers said was a gun after tripping and falling several times while fleeing, Gill said, adding that Palacios-Carbajal seemed determined to hold on to his gun. “The desire to retrieve the gun was greater than the desire to run away,” he said. “If he had left it, the officers said the imminence of that threat would have been abated for them and they would not have used that force.”

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Title: Trump says he 'aced' recent cognitive test, suggests Biden take it WASHINGTON — President Trump said Thursday he “aced” a recent cognitive test given to him by his doctors and challenged opponent Joe Biden to undergo similar testing as the two septuagenarians duel over who has better mental stamina for the Oval Office. In a phone interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Thursday evening, Trump described undergoing “a very standard test” at the Walter Reed medical center and said his doctors were “very surprised” by how well he performed. “He hasn’t taken any cognitive test because he wouldn’t pass one,” the president told Hannity after the Fox News host asked if he believed Biden had the “mental alertness” to be president. “I actually took one when I was, very recently, when I was, when I was, you know — the radical left was saying, ‘Is he all there? Is he all there?'” “I proved I was all there because I aced it. I aced the test and he should take the same exact test. A very standard test, I took it at Walter Reed, a medical center in front of doctors, and they were very surprised,” he continued. “They said, ‘That’s an unbelievable thing. Rarely does anybody do what you just did.’ But he should take that same test.” Details of the Walter Reed examination are unknown, but it is possible they were part of the president’s annual physical examination that is performed at the hospital each year. The results of his most recent physical were released last month and showed 74-year-old Trump to be in good health for his age. Trump scored 30 out of 30 on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment administered by White House physician Ronny Jackson in January 2018. Trump said he looked forward to debating Biden but accused his Democratic opponent of trying to get out of the one-to-one sessions. “It looks like he wants to try to get out of the debates,” he told Hannity. At an event in Delaware last month, a reporter asked Biden, 77, if he had been tested for cognitive decline given his advanced age, to which he said he was “constantly tested.” “All you gotta do is watch me and I can hardly wait to compare my cognitive capability to the cognitive capability of the man I’m running against,” he said.

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Title: Boy fatally shoots younger brother in game of cops and robbers A 13-year-old Pennsylvania boy fatally shot his 9-year-old brother for not listening to him as they played a game of cops and robbers, state police said. Brayden Leroy Wright, of Waynesboro, is accused of intentionally shooting his younger brother early Wednesday, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by PennLive.com. Police responded to the teen’s home after he called cops to report that someone had fallen. Paramedics then found Wright’s 9-year-old brother in cardiac arrest while bleeding from his head. He later died at Waynesboro Hospital, Trooper Erica Polcha said in an affidavit. An investigation determined that the muzzle of a gun was touching the boy’s head as it was fired, with the bullet entering the 9-year-old boy’s skull and exiting through the right side of his head, Polcha said. Matthew Snyder, the boys’ father, told cops he kept two loaded 9mm handguns in an unlocked console of a couch in the living room where his sons were playing early Wednesday, PennLive.com reports. Snyder said he kept the guns loaded for “home protection,” the trooper wrote in the affidavit. During an interview with police, Brayden admitting shooting his younger brother because he “was not complying with his commands” while playing a game of cops and robbers, Polcha said. “He admitted to being angry with the victim for not listening to him,” the affidavit reads. Brayden, who said he knew the gun was loaded, told cops he put the weapon back in the couch console after shooting his brother as he watched videos on his cellphone on a couch, Polcha said. Blood was found on the gun, which also had another round in its chamber, the trooper wrote. The teen, who was charged as an adult, was denied bail by a judge Wednesday on charges of homicide and aggravated assault. He’s due back in court for a preliminary hearing on Monday, according to PennLive.com. The boys’ guardians, meanwhile, were not facing any charges as of Thursday, WHTM reports.

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Title: Barr says Epstein probe moves on with or without Prince Andrew Attorney General William Barr said the FBI “definitely” wants to interview Prince Andrew about Jeffrey Epstein and his alleged fixer Ghislaine Maxwell — but that the investigation involving the late pedophile will proceed even without the royal’s cooperation, according to a report. “Definitely the (Justice Department) wants to talk to Prince Andrew, that’s why the Southern District has been making efforts to communicate and to arrange an interview with him,” Barr said in an interview with ABC News. “The department is communicating with him and made it clear that we’d like to interview him,” he added. Federal prosecutors in the Big Apple have formally requested testimony from the Duke of York as part of the criminal probe into Epstein’s alleged co-conspirators, two sources familiar with the matter have told the outlet. Ex-Manhattan US Attorney Geoffrey Berman last month criticized Andrew’s failure to cooperate with investigators. “If Prince Andrew is, in fact, serious about cooperating with the ongoing federal investigation, our doors remain open, and we await word of when we should expect him,” said Berman, who stepped down after a standoff with the AG. Andrew’s legal team insists that he has consistently offered to cooperate with the feds, saying last month in a statement that the prince had “on at least three occasions this year offered his assistance as a witness to the DOJ,” according to ABC News. A source told the outlet that the feds asked Andrew for his cooperation in early January, and his lawyers responded by opening discussions about how he would provide the testimony. They were left “slack jawed” when Berman later announced that Andrew had offered “zero cooperation,” according to ABC News, which reported that Audrey Strauss, the acting US attorney for the Southern District of New York, also has appealed for Andrew’s testimony. A source close to Andrew told ABC News that his team has “twice communicated with the DOJ in the last month, and to-date, we have had no response.” The prince is said to have been rattled by the recent arrest of Maxwell, Epstein’s alleged procuress, on charges that include alleged sex crimes in her London townhouse — where the prince has separately been accused by an Epstein “sex slave” of sleeping with her when she was 17, the Mirror has reported. Andrew has forcefully denied the allegations. It’s unclear whether Maxwell will cooperate with prosecutors, but at least one lawyer who represents several of her accusers has suggested that Andrew could be implicated if she does. Attorney Gloria Allred said at a press conference Monday that the prince should speak with federal prosecutors in New York before Maxwell does. Barr, meanwhile, told ABC News that he has asked those responsible for Maxwell’s safety while locked up at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn to relay “specifically the protocols they’re following, and we have a number of redundancy systems to monitor the situation.” Epstein committed suicide in his Manhattan jail cell 11 months ago as he awaited trial on sex-trafficking charges. “I believe very strongly in that case and I was very proud of the work done by the department, the Southern District, on that case,” Barr told ABC News. “And as you will recall, after he committed suicide, I said that I was confident that we would continue to pursue this case vigorously and — pursue anyone who’s complicit in it,” he added. “And so I’m very happy that we were able to get Miss Maxwell.” The former British socialite is scheduled for a remote detention hearing on Tuesday.

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Title: France to restore Notre-Dame Cathedral as it was before inferno PARIS – Paris’ centuries-old Notre Dame Cathedral will be rebuilt as it was before being engulfed in a fire last year, the public body in charge of its restoration said on Thursday. The April 15, 2019 blaze gutted the Gothic landmark and major tourist attraction, destroying the spire and roof in a disaster that stunned the nation. A national heritage and architectural commission approved plans to restore the cathedral to its last “complete, coherent and known” state, including the spire, the restoration body said in a statement. President Emmanuel Macron promised after the fire to rebuild Notre Dame within five years and later suggested that a contemporary design could be used for the spire. Church officials hope Notre Dame will be open for mass by 2024 when Paris is due to host the Olympic Games.

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Title: Trump doubles down on threat to cut funding for closed schools President Trump blasted virtual classes Friday as he doubled down on his threat to cut funding to public school districts that don’t reopen in the fall amid the coronavirus pandemic. “Now that we have witnessed it on a large scale basis, and firsthand, Virtual Learning has proven to be TERRIBLE compared to In School, or On Campus, Learning. Not even close!” the president said in a tweet. “Schools must be open in the Fall. If not open, why would the Federal Government give Funding? It won’t!!!” he added. Trump said earlier this week that he would pressure governors to reopen 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,” he said at a forum attended by health experts and education officials. Trump also said he didn’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!!!,” he tweeted Wednesday. The agency’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. CDC Director Robert Redfield said the next day that the agency would not revise reopening guidelines after the president ripped them as expensive and burdensome. “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,” Redfield said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “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.” Redfield added that the reopening of schools was a critical component of the nation’s return to some semblance of normalcy. Meanwhile, Trump also took a swipe Friday at states amid the rash of violence sweeping the nation. “Get it done or the Federal Government will come in and get it done for you!” the president said in a tweet.

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Title: China says pneumonia possibly deadlier than COVID-19 hits Kazakhstan Chinese officials claim that Kazakhstan is experiencing an outbreak of “unknown pneumonia” potentially deadlier than COVID-19 — though authorities in the Central Asian country later denied the outbreak is new or unknown, according to a report. The Chinese embassy in Kazakhstan on Thursday informed its citizens that the illness had killed more than 1,700 people, CNN reported. “Kazakhstani Health Department and other agencies are conducting comparative research and have not defined the nature of the pneumonia virus,” the embassy said in a statement. It said new cases of the mystery ailment have spiked considerably across Kazakhstan since mid-June, adding that in some places, officials report hundreds of new cases each day, according to the network. But the Kazakhstan health ministry on Friday denied that the outbreak was new or unknown, acknowledging only the presence of “viral pneumonias of unspecified etiology.” “In response to these reports, the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Kazakhstan officially declares that this information does not correspond to reality,” the statement says, CNN reported. The ministry added that the “unspecified” classification followed World Health Organization guidelines “for the registration of pneumonia when the coronavirus infection is diagnosed clinically or epidemiologically but is not confirmed by laboratory testing.” The Chinese embassy said the cases were concentrated in the regions of Atyrau, Aktobe and Shymkent, where almost 500 people have been sickened, with more than 30 being critically ill, according to the report. The illness has claimed 1,772 lives this year, some of whom were Chinese, according to the embassy. A total of 628 of the deaths took place in June. “This disease is much deadlier than COVID-19,” the statement said. The embassy warned Chinese residents living in the region to limit how much they venture outside and to avoid crowded public areas. It also urged them to wear masks, disinfect spaces and wash hands frequently. When asked Friday about the outbreak, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs told journalists that Beijing is seeking more information. “China hopes to work together with Kazakhstan to fight the epidemic and to safeguard the two countries’ public health security,” he said. The Kazakhstan Health Ministry said in a statement that Minister Aleksey Tsoy had addressed a number of pneumonia cases across the country during a briefing Thursday. The cases included various kinds of bacterial, fungal and viral pneumonia, including some of “unspecified etiology.” Tsoy said all registered cases of pneumonia in Kazakhstan rose by more than 300 percent in June compared to the same month in 2019 — from 7,964 last year to 32,724 in 2020. Related deaths rose by 129 percent — from 274 in June 2019 to 628 in the same month in 2020. Meanwhile, Kazakhstan continues to battle a rise in coronavirus cases — with 53,021 infections and 264 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

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Title: Woman charged in hit-and-run at Indiana protest that injured two An Indiana woman accused of driving into demonstrators protesting the alleged attempted lynching of a black man has been charged, authorities said. Christi Bennett, 66, of Scottsburg, was charged Thursday with two counts of criminal recklessness and two counts of leaving the scene of an accident. She was arrested Wednesday at a motel and refused to provide a statement to cops, Bloomington police said. Footage posted to Twitter showed a red Toyota Corolla, allegedly driven by Bennett, striking two protesters late Monday near the Monroe County Courthouse, where demonstrators were reportedly demanding arrests of several people who allegedly attacked Vauhxx Rush Booker near Lake Monroe on July 4. Two people were hurt during the incident, including Chasity Mottinger, 29, who was knocked unconscious as she was launched onto the Corolla’s hood, according to a probable cause affidavit. Geoff Stewart, 35, who was holding onto the car as it sped off, said the driver revved her car into the crowd after she was asked to roll down her window. “Someone asked where she was trying to go,” Stewart, who was left with cuts and bruises, told the Indianapolis Star. “I did not hear her response, but the person talking to her said, ‘If you wait just a minute, you’ll be able to go through once everyone has cleared out.’” But Bennett then drove into Mottinger and Stewart, he told the outlet. Bennett has since been released on $500 bond, a “slap on the wrist,” Stewart told the newspaper. “She needs to be in prison because she has not learned from her violent acts and was unwilling to be reasonable when approached calmly,” Stewart said. Bennett, who has previously been convicted of stalking, is due to make her first court appearance next week. A motive for the attack has not been disclosed. Mottinger echoed Stewart’s take, saying she was “really disappointed” that Bennett was released on $500 bond. “This just adds to the concerns the community has had lately — but actually for a very long time — regarding violent white individuals not receiving proper attention from law enforcement, like the men last weekend,” Mottinger told the Associated Press. With Post wires

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Title: Trump says he'll wear a mask on trip to Walter Reed med center Despite his aversion to face masks, President Trump said he will wear one during his weekend trip to Walter Reed medical center, where he is expected to meet with staff and injured service members, according to a report. “I expect to be wearing a mask when I go into Walter Reed. You’re in a hospital setting, I think it’s a very appropriate thing,” the president told Fox News’ Sean Hannity in a live phone interview Thursday. “I have no problem with a mask,” he added, according to Politico. “It’s fine to wear a mask if it makes you feel comfortable.” The commander-in-chief will visit the military hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, on Saturday to meet combat vets and health care workers who have been on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic, the news outlet reported. Trump’s comments are in stark contrast to his unmasked appearances during public events as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urges the use of face coverings to help prevent the spread of the bug. Amid a recent pushback from prominent Republican lawmakers, the president eased up on his stance and said he’s “all for masks. I think masks are good.” On Thursday, Trump suggested that covering up shouldn’t be necessary in certain settings, including where testing is widely available or where social distancing is possible. But he said he was concerned about spreading germs to patients at the medical center. “I don’t want to spread anything. And a lot of it is you spreading, not them spreading,” he told Hannity. “And I don’t want to cause a problem for anybody.”

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Title: Trump brushes aside Kanye West's presidential aspirations President Trump suggested in a new interview that he bears no harsh feelings for Kanye West, who recently announced a run for the White House and said he no longer supports the commander-in-chief. “He is always going to be for us, and his wife is going to be for us,” the president told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Thursday, referring to the rapper and reality TV star Kim Kardashian West, The Hill reported. The sneaker mogul, who announced his presidential candidacy Saturday, told Forbes magazine this week that he was “taking the red hat off, with this interview” as he launched his own party for 2020 — “the Birthday Party.” “[He’s a] very good guy. He is a person that I get along with very well,” Trump said on Fox News. “At the end I think he would support us over anyone else, we have to stop the radical left from taking over our country.” West, who has not taken any concrete steps to actually file to run for the presidency, delivered an F-bomb- and curse-filled rant during a meeting in the Oval Office in October 2018. Trump later said the MAGA hat-wearing rapper could one day fill his shoes in the White House.

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Title: Tropical Storm Fay picks up speed, strength en route to NYC area Tropical Storm Fay picked up some speed and strength as it moved closer to land Friday — and is expected to dump 2 to 4 inches of rain as it passes through the tri-state area, forecasters said. The rains may result in flash flooding where the heaviest amounts occur, the US National Hurricane Center said in its 5 a.m. advisory. The storm is moving north around 10 mph and producing top sustained winds of 50 mph, forecasters said. Earlier observations showed it moving at 8 mph with top sustained winds of 45 mph. A tropical storm warning is in effect from Cape May, New Jersey, to Watch Hill, Rhode Island. The warning area includes Long Island and the Long Island Sound. Showers and possibly a thunderstorm are forecast for Friday evening, with gusty winds possible. New rainfall amounts between 1 and 2 inches also are possible, according to the National Weather Service. Fay is the earliest sixth-named storm on record, according to Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach. The previous record was Franklin on July 22, 2005, he said.

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Title: Longtime Alabama mayor dead of COVID-19 as state cases surge A long time Alabama mayor has died of COVID-19 as cases of the virus have risen in the state. Billy Joe Driver, who was elected as mayor of Clanton in 1984, was admitted to the hospital on June 28, where he passed away on Thursday, reports People.com. He was 84. “We are deeply saddened to announce the passing of our beloved Mayor. He was looking forward to his retirement later this year,” said the Clanton Fire Department in a statement. “At this year’s annual department dinner, Mayor Driver shared an emotional story about his time with the fire department until present and challenged the upcoming generations to continue the progress. His love for our city runs deep and he will be greatly missed by many!” Driver, who has a long political career in the town, joined the Clanton City Council in 1972 and served until elected as mayor. “He spent the best years of his life dedicated to the city that he loved,” says Driver’s daughter, Kim Driver Hayes. Gov. Kay Ivey offered her condolences to Driver’s family, saying that the city has “lost a valued public servant.” Alabama has reported 15,000 new cases of the coronavirus in the last two weeks, with 287 in Chilton County, where Clanton is located, as of Thursday, according to Alabama Public Health.

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Title: Late Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon left behind apologetic will Late Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon left behind an apologetic will before his death. Park, 64, was found dead early Friday in a wooded hill of northern Seoul hours after he vanished amid sexual harassment allegations. Police said there were no signs of criminality at the site but declined to disclose a cause of death. Park in his letter said he felt “sorry to all people” and asked to be cremated. “I feel sorry to all people. I thank everyone who has been with me in my life,” he said in the note released by the South Korean government. “I am always sorry to my family because I’ve given them only pains. Please cremate my body and scatter around the graves of my parents.” The mayor built his name as a civic activist before he was elected mayor in 2011. He was viewed as was a rising star in President Moon Jae-in’s liberal Democratic Party and had been viewed a possible presidential candidate in 2022 elections. His daughter alerted police on Thursday that Park had left a “will-like” audio message before leaving their residence for the last time, triggering a massive search involving hundreds of police and fire officials, drones and tracking dogs. The Seoul-based SBS TV network reported that one of the mayor’s secretaries had filed a complaint with police a day earlier over alleged sexual harassment such as unwanted physical contact that dated back to 2017. With Post wires

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Title: Son of slain California doctor said dad was asking for directions DANVILLE, Calif. — A San Francisco Bay Area doctor who was on an off-roading trip with his 15-year-old son was shot and killed after he stopped to ask a man for directions, his son and other relatives said. Dr. Ari Gershman of Danville was shot on the Fourth of July near Downieville in rural Sierra County. Gershman and his son, Jack, had never been to the remote Tahoe National Forest and pulled over at a fork when a man came up behind their Jeep on an ATV. “My dad suggested that we ask him for directions,” Jack Gershman told CBS News Thursday. “The shooter pulls out a pistol and starts shooting.” The teenager said he ran from the car into the surrounding woods and got lost. When he was finally able to call his mom, Paige Gershman, he barely had reception and his phone was running out of power. “I said, ‘Where’s Dad?’ And he’s like, ‘He’s been shot.’ And I said, ‘What do you — what do you even mean?’” Paige Gershman told CBS News. Ari Gershman, 45, died at the scene and his son spent 30 hours alone and lost in the dense woods, drinking from a stream, wearing only shorts and a T-shirt. He was covered in bug bites and scratches when he was rescued, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. John Thomas Conway was arrested following a police chase on his ATV. Ari Gershman, a doctor of internal medicine, bought the Jeep a day before the shooting to share his love of the outdoors with his two sons and daughter. He had hoped to retire in the Downieville area, according to a GoFundMe fundraising account. see also Suspect in California doctor's killing identified as wanted felon It had already been a difficult year for the Gershman family. Paige Gershman, a speech and language therapist for the San Ramon Valley Unified School District, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma six weeks ago, said a cousin, Marlo Meyers-Barer. Police said they captured Conway, 40, of Oroville after he tried to run through a checkpoint on an ATV. The Sierra County Sheriff’s Office said Conway posed an unspecified threat, and at least one officer fired a weapon and a police dog was released. Conway was taken to a hospital in Chico, where he is recovering from a gunshot wound, the Chronicle reported. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Conway had a lawyer who could speak on his behalf. Messages left with the Sierra County District Attorney’s Office weren’t immediately returned. Moments before the shooting of Ari Gershman, Conway also shot and injured two other people nearby who survived, the office said. Last year, the Butte County Sheriff’s Office listed Conway as one of its most wanted fugitives as he had outstanding felony warrants for vandalism, battery and two counts of making terrorist threats. A judge held a mental competency hearing and the case was allowed to continue, according to court records.

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Title: Video shows officer point gun at doctor on his own property A Colorado police department where officers were fired after re-enacting the chokehold death of a young Black man is under scrutiny again after video emerged of an officer pulling a gun on a doctor trying to park at a refugee center he operates. Police body camera video released by Dr. P.J. Parmar’s lawyer as well as Parmar’s own cellphone video show a white Aurora police officer identified as J. Henderson pointing a gun at Parmar, who is Indian American, on March 1 after Parmar honked at the officer’s police car parked in his way. In the video, the officer walks to Parmar’s car, says “Let me see your (expletive) hands. What are you doing?” and orders him to stay in the car. Parmar is heard explaining that he owns the property and telling the officer to leave. Parmar then gets out, walks around to a door on one side of the building, punches in a security code and goes inside. The video shows the officer looking bewildered after Parmar leaves his car. After other officers arrive to help, the officer is heard saying that he could ticket Parmar for careless driving since he pulled into the parking area the wrong way. Aurora police have declined to comment on the incident because it is the subject of an internal investigation. The probe is being conducted as the department’s arrest and subsequent death of Elijah McClain is being reviewed by the state attorney general at the request of Gov. Jared Polis. Federal authorities are also considering whether to launch a civil rights investigation into his death. Parmar’s lawyer, David Lane, last week sent a letter to the police department urging them to sit down and talk about what happened by Friday or face a federal lawsuit. Parmar, the son of Indian immigrants and who also has Canadian citizenship, said he was more frustrated and annoyed with the officer’s actions than afraid. Parmar, who treats refugees at a medical clinic in his center, believes his race affected how he was treated and fears he would have been treated worse if his skin was darker. Parmar said he was too embarrassed to share his video at the time, but posted a written description of what happened on Facebook soon afterward. In May, he decided to put the video on social media. Pamar said his state representative, Dominique Jackson, read his written description and brought it to the attention of interim Police Chief Vanessa Wilson, who opened an investigation into the incident. Parmar first shared the video online before national protests over racial injustice erupted following the May 25 death of George Floyd. He said the video did not get much of a reaction at first, but has seen more since the increased scrutiny of police abuse of power. Some people post comments saying he should have been more docile, Parmar said. But, he thinks that would have only emboldened the officer to act more forcefully against him. “Oppressors can only oppress when they have an audience, a victim, and I wasn’t going to be his audience that night,” he said.

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Title: Embattled USS Theodore Roosevelt returns to US after COVID-19 outbreak Advertisement SAN DIEGO — The USS Theodore Roosevelt returned home to San Diego on Thursday led by a new captain who came aboard after the previous commanding officer was fired over the handling of a massive COVID-19 outbreak on board. There were no emotional embraces on the Navy pier typical of such homecomings when sailors return after months at sea. Instead, the crew wearing face coverings disembarked one by one and walked to waiting vehicles to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, marking a quiet and sterile end to one of the Navy’s most tumultuous non-combat deployments. The aircraft carrier departed in January with 4,800 crew members. In late March, it pulled into the port at Guam amid a rapidly escalating outbreak. It remained there for 10 weeks as the ship was sanitized and sailors were taken off to be quarantined, treated or tested. Over time, more than 1,150 crew members tested positive for the coronavirus and one sailor died. Early on, Capt. Brett Crozier urged his commanders to take faster action to stem the spread of the virus but was removed from his command when his letter was leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle. Then-acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly also resigned over the matter. The Navy opened an investigation, which found Crozier made serious errors in judgment that worsened the problem. The investigation also determined that the likely source of the coronavirus infection was obtained during a port visit in Vietnam in March. The ship returned to sea June 4, but two weeks later had another mishap when one of its F/A-18F Super Hornets crashed into the Philippine Sea. Its pilot and weapons officer were rescued by helicopter. The Roosevelt continued on its mission, training on June 21 with the USS Nimitz in the Navy’s first dual-carrier exercise in the Western Pacific in three years. Then on July 2, another sailor on board died from an undisclosed medical emergency. Capt. Carlos Sardiello, who replaced Crozier on the ship, told reporters in San Diego that he was proud of his crew who faced “unprecedented challenges” but got right back on mission. “Obviously they’re very excited to get off the ship now,” he said.

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Title: Former Kentucky HS teacher accused of having sex with 17-year-old student A former Kentucky high school teacher was arrested and charged Thursday for allegedly having sex with a 17-year-old year student, authorities said. Mollie Verkamp, 27, admitted to police that about two years ago she slept with a former student from a high school outside Boone County, according to a press release from the Boone County Sheriff’s Office. Cops had been investigating Verkamp for a year, opening up their probe to look into a separate claim that the ex-teacher sent sexually explicit videos to an 18-year-old student at Walton Verona High School, where she most recently taught. It was while probing those allegations that Verkamp allegedly told authorities she had also sent illicit messages to a 17-year-old student at her last teaching job. Verkamp then confessed to also having sex with the minor at her home in Boone County, authorities said. She was indicted on Thursday by a Boone County Grand Jury on rape and sodomy charges. Her bond has been set at $10,000.

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Title: Mnuchin wants 'another round' of stimulus checks passed this month Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday that a second round of stimulus checks should be included in a new coronavirus relief package — that will hopefully be enacted by the end of the month. Mnuchin made the announcement during an interview with CNBC when he said the administration is discussing the plan for a fourth coronavirus relief package with congressional leaders. “We do support another round of economic impact payments,” Mnuchin told the network. “We’re discussing the criteria with the Senate, and had a productive talk with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.” The Trump administration will work “on a bipartisan basis with Republicans and Democrats” on the bill, Mnuchin said, adding it is a “priority” to have legislation passed by July 20. The second round of checks would come months after most Americans received a $1,200 sum as part of the $2 trillion rescue legislation passed in March. Asked about the enhanced federal unemployment benefit set to expire at the end of the month, Mnuchin said the administration supports changing rather than extending the provision. He did not give additional details. “You can assume that it will be no more than 100 percent” of a worker’s usual pay, Mnuchin said. The White House does back an extension of the Paycheck Protection Program loans for small businesses but wants it to be “much, much more targeted” than past rounds of funding, Mnuchin said.

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Title: Italian hospital coronavirus-free for first time in 137 days The intensive care unit of an Italian hospital devastated by the coronavirus is finally COVID-19-free. The Papa Giovanni XXIII, the main hospital in Bergamo, on Wednesday reported no virus patients in its ICU for the first time in 137 days — since the first patient was admitted on Feb. 23, according to Italian news agency ANSA. Bergamo’s surrounding province of Lombardy in northern Italy accounted for half of the country’s coronavirus deaths as the virus ravaged the area. When the news was announced in the hospital, staff held a minute-long moment of silence for the victims of the pandemic before celebrating with a long round of applause “because we all deserved it,” said Luca Lorini, director of the hospital’s emergency department, according to ABC News. “We dreamed of this goal and worked for such a long time to reach it,” Lorini added. The several remaining patients who had fought the coronavirus have now tested negative, according to the hospital. After the country was badly overwhelmed by the virus, Italy managed to get infections under control in late March, with new cases drastically declining since. On Wednesday, Italy reported 193 new infections — far fewer than the United States, where officials are grappling with the worst rate of infections since the pandemic began. The US reported 58,600 cases Wednesday, the second-highest number of daily new infections after Tuesday when the country recorded more than 60,000 new cases in a singe 24-hour window.

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Title: Robert Fuller's hanging death in California was suicide, police say LOS ANGELES — A police investigation confirmed suicide was the cause of death of a Black man found hanging from a tree in a Southern California city park last month, authorities said Thursday. The investigation revealed Robert Fuller, a 24-year-old homeless man, suffered from mental illness and took his own life early on June 10 in a park near City Hall in Palmdale, a community of about 150,000 people north of Los Angeles, sheriff’s Commander Chris Marks said. Marks outlined three hospitalizations since 2017 where Fuller told doctors he was considering suicide. The last was in November, when he was being treated for depression at a hospital in Nevada and “disclosed that he did have a plan to kill himself,” Marks said. Marks also said the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department investigated an incident in February in which Fuller “allegedly tried to light himself on fire.” Last month, after Fuller’s body was reported by a passerby in the park, deputies reported finding no evidence of a crime at the scene. An autopsy conducted the next day resulted in an initial finding of suicide. That determination outraged Fuller’s family, who said authorities were too quick to dismiss the possibility of a crime. They hired an attorney who said an independent autopsy would be conducted, and the FBI and state attorney general’s office pledged to monitor the investigation. Sheriff Alex Villanueva said the findings of the investigation and the final determination of suicide were shared with Fuller’s family and they were invited to attend the news conference but were out of town. The family’s attorney, Jamon Hicks, said he would issue a statement or hold a news conference later. The Fuller case came in the midst of intense protests over police brutality following the police killing of death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Following Fuller’s death, more than 1,000 people attended a peaceful protest and memorial around the tree where his body was found. His family and friends described him as a peacemaker who loved music and video games, and mostly stayed to himself. He had gone to a Black Lives Matter protest days before he died, the Los Angeles Times reported. A week after Fuller’s death, his half-brother, Terron J. Boone, was fatally shot by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies. Police say Boone opened fire on deputies as they were about to arrest him on charges that he beat his girlfriend and held her captive for nearly a week. He died at the scene, where a handgun was found. Fuller was the second Black man recently found hanged in Southern California. Malcolm Harsch, a 38-year-old homeless man, was found in a tree on May 31 in Victorville, a desert city in San Bernardino County east of Palmdale. Publicity surrounding Fuller’s case prompted Harsch’s family to seek further investigation of his death. Police were able to obtain surveillance footage from a vacant building near where Harsch’s body was found that “confirmed the absence of foul play,” according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. The family was shown the video and said they accepted the finding of suicide.

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Title: Maryland man believes he may be vaccinated against COVID-19 A Maryland man believes he may be one of the first people to be successfully vaccinated against the coronavirus after participating in a trial that has reported promising early results in producing antibodies, according to reports. David Rach, a graduate immunology student, was the first person to be injected in the trial in May at the University of Maryland, where US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and German firm BioNTech are working together in the global race to create a vaccine, the Daily Mail reports. Now, early indications show the vaccine is working by stimulating the growth of antibodies at rates equal to or higher than those who have the illness, according to WJLA. ”There is a component of relief seeing that it’s actually producing results, that the vaccine is producing antibodies,” Rach told the news station. Rach cannot be certain whether he was given the actual vaccine or a placebo saline solution, but after a slight reaction from his second dose, he is convinced he is one of the very few people in the world vaccinated against COVID-19, the outlet said. He is due to be tested in October to determine if he does have immunity against the virus. If the trial proves successful, Pfizer said, it will produce 100 million doses before the end of the year and more than a billion doses next year, WJLA reports.

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Title: Michael Cohen pleaded for freedom after US Marshal arrived Advertisement   Michael Cohen pleaded not to be hauled back into prison after US Marshals broke out the shackles when they took him into custody Thursday. “I’ll sign exactly what you want me to sign, so I don’t have to go back to jail,” President Trump’s former fixer whined to the lawmen who proceeded to chain him and take him into their custody, his former lawyer and friend Lanny Davis said. Cohen was taken into custody by the marshals at Manhattan federal court, where he reported Thursday morning to have an ankle bracelet attached and to sign terms of his new home confinement. Cohen refused to agree to the first term of the home confinement deal, which would’ve barred him from speaking to the press and blocked him from publishing a tell-all book that he’s been writing while behind bars in an upstate New York federal prison. When he refused to sign, federal authorities left the room and returned an hour and a half later with the shackle-toting marshals. According to Davis, when he saw the marshals emerge from an elevator, Cohen’s lawyer, Jeff Levine, turned to Cohen and said: “I hope they’re not here for you.” “The next thing that happened was the marshals said they had an order signed by someone from the Bureau of Prisons. The order was to arrest him and put him in jail, and they started to put shackles on him,” said Davis, who spoke to Levine after Cohen’s arrest. “Michael reacted very quickly and said, ‘I’ll sign exactly what you want me to sign, so I don’t have to go back to jail,’ ” Davis said. “The comment from one of the three marshals was: ‘It’s out of our hands,’ ” he added. His arrest comes after a photograph of Cohen dining out with his wife and another couple at a French restaurant on the Upper East Side was published on Page One of The Post. Cohen is supposed to be serving a three-year sentence for crimes that include tax evasion, bank fraud and lying to Congress, as well as covering up hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal. But the Bureau of Prisons released him due to the coronavirus crisis on May 20 — even though a judge had refused to reduce his sentence for the same reason two months earlier. Additional reporting by Bruce Golding

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Title: Nancy Pelosi refuses to condemn toppling of Columbus statue WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday refused to condemn protesters who toppled a statue of Christoper Columbus in her hometown of Baltimore before tossing it in a nearby harbor, blowing it off by saying, “People will do what they do.” “I think that its up to the communities to decide what statues they want to see,” Pelosi (D. Calif) said when pressed on the July 4 incident where a mob of activists tore down the statue of Columbus, dragged it to the edge of Inner Harbor and threw it into the water, according to local media reports. Explaining her position, the Democratic lawmaker, 80, said she wasn’t a sentimental person, and even went so far as to compare monuments to her grandmother’s earrings, which she hadn’t kept. “I’m not one of those people who’s wedded to, ‘Oh, a statue to somebody someplace is an important thing’,” she told reporters at a press briefing on Capitol Hill. “If the community doesn’t want the statue there, the statue shouldn’t be there,” she said, skipping over the rule of law. “I don’t care that much about the statues.” When one reporter pushed back on Pelosi, suggesting it would be better for the City Council to remove the statue than a “mob in the middle of the night,” the congresswoman said: “People will do what they do.” Pelosi’s nonchalant stance towards the toppling of statues around the country in the wake of George Floyd’s death stands in stark contrast to President Trump, who has warned he would pursue hefty criminal sentences for offenders. Pelosi, whose father was the mayor of Baltimore from 1947 to 1959, also took a different stance to local leaders who condemned the protester’s behavior. Baltimore Mayor Bernard C. Jack Young said he would not tolerate the destruction of the statue of the 15th century Italian explorer who colonized the Americas. “If we identify them, they will be brought to justice,” Young said, according to the Baltimore Sun. “We support peaceful protest. This is not a peaceful protest,” Young added. “It is unacceptable.”

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Title: Neo-Nazis call to infect Jews, Muslims with COVID-19: report Far-right and neo-nazi groups are instructing followers to “deliberately infect” Jews and Muslims with the coronavirus as they fan conspiracy theories around the pandemic, a UK government counterterrorism agency warned Thursday. The UK’s Commission for Countering Extremism published research saying it has received increasing reports of extremist groups of all kinds — far-right, far-left and Islamist extremists — exploiting the public health crisis to “sow division” in communities. “We have heard reports of British Far Right activists and Neo-Nazi groups promoting anti-minority narratives by encouraging users to deliberately infect groups, including Jewish communities,” the report warned. One conspiracy theory detailed in the report claims the virus is fake and part of a “Jewish plot” to mislead the public while another falsely claims that Muslims are responsible for the spread of the contagion by keeping mosques open during lockdown. On the opposite side of the ideological spectrum, the report also warned about Islamists “propagating anti-democratic and anti-Western narratives,” claiming that COVID-19 is “divine punishment” on the West for alleged “degeneracy,” or punishment on China for the country’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims. “Groups from the Far Right to the Far Left and Islamist groups have fully exploited the lockdown to promote dangerous conspiracy theories and disinformation, most notably online,” said the government agency’s commissioner, Sara Khan, in a blog post. “We have already seen how extremists discussed the 5G conspiracy theory on fringe social media platforms such as Telegram.” Conspiracies falsely linking the virus to the mobile network have led to 50 incidents this April in the UK where residents either burned down or otherwise vandalized 5G masts, according to the report. The report also criticized social media companies for “not doing enough” to snuff out the easily debunked conspiracies spreading on their platforms. Of 649 posts flagged for misinformation relating to the virus on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter between April 20 to May 26, only 9.4 percent were acted upon and just 6.3 percent were eventually removed, according to data from the London nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate. Far-right politicians and news outlets have also played a role in normalizing hatred against religious and ethnic groups by “push[ing] forward their anti-immigrant and populist message,” the report said. The UK report follows State Department findings last month warning the threat of racially and ethnically motivated terrorism from white supremacists is “on the rise and spreading geographically” across the country and world. In Britain, the commission called for the government to develop “clear plans” to cut-off and counteract violent extremist views and ensure that existing laws against inciting hatred are enforceable online. “We need to be on the front foot to counter the activity of hateful extremists who seek to divide and undermine everything our country stands for,” Khan said, “and we must begin work on it now.”

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Title: Colin Powell suggests media had 'hysterical' reaction to Russian bounty reports Former Secretary of State Colin Powell indicated on Thursday that media figures overreacted to a recent report that Russian officials placed bounties on the lives of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. “What I know is that our military commanders on the ground did not think that it was as serious a problem as the newspapers were reporting and television was reporting,” Powell told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. “It got kind of out of control before we really had an understanding of what had happened. I’m not sure we fully understand now.” He added: “But [commander of U.S. Central Command] General [Kenneth] McKenzie … he did not think this was of that level of importance to us. Remember, it’s not the intelligence community that’s going to go fight these guys, it’s the guys on the ground. It’s our troops. It’s our commanders who are going to go deal with this kind of a threat, using intelligence that was given to them by the intelligence community. “But that has to be analyzed,” Powell went on. “It has to be attested. And then you have to go find out who the enemy is. And I think we were on top of that one, but it just got — it got almost hysterical in the firs few days.” Trump has denied a report by The New York Times that he was briefed on intelligence about the bounties, but did nothing about them. “The Russia Bounty story is just another made up by Fake News tale that is told only to damage me and the Republican Party,” he tweeted last week. Both the White House and McKenzie, of U.S. Central Command, have indicated the intelligence wasn’t strong enough to merit the president’s attention. “The intel case wasn’t proved to me — it wasn’t proved enough that I’d take it to a court of law — and you know that’s often true in battlefield intelligence,” McKenzie told reporters Tuesday. “You see a lot of indicators,” the general explained. “Many of them are troubling, many of them you act on. But, in this case there just there wasn’t enough there. I sent the intelligence guys back to continue to dig on it, and I believe they’re continuing to dig right now, but I just didn’t see enough there to tell me that the circuit was closed in that regard.” McKenzie also expressed doubts that the bounty program led to any deaths of U.S. soldiers.

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Title: Florida reports record high COVID-19 deaths in a single day Florida reported 120 coronavirus-related deaths Thursday, a record daily high for the Sunshine State since the pandemic began. Nearly 9,000 new cases were added to the state’s total of more than 232,718 confirmed infections, according to data released Thursday by the Florida Department of Health. Florida has recorded more than 4,000 confirmed virus-related deaths. Florida also set a record high for daily infection rates on Saturday when 11,458 cases were reported, and more than 63,000 new cases have been confirmed during the past week, according to a local news outlet. Gov. Ron DeSantis said earlier this week that he believed the state has “stabilized” but that he would like to see the coronavirus figures get back to what they were in May and early June. “There’s no need to be fearful,” he added, despite the increasing number of positive tests. Cases have surged in other states across the U.S., bring the country’s total to more than 3 million confirmed coronavirus cases and nearly 133,000 deaths. DeSantis has repeatedly said he will not reinstate lockdown measures and does not believe that mask mandates will do anything to alleviate the spread of the virus. The governor also said the rise in cases in Florida is because testing capabilities have gone up, echoing President Trump’s dismissal of the rise in COVID-19 across the U.S. “There have been way more infections than documented cases,” DeSantis said Monday. “But it’s not really evidence that it’s more prevalent.” Health officials have said the virus is accelerating and that infection rates are not strictly increasing because of testing. “In April and May, we were dealing with 100,000 cases a day,” World Health Organization (WHO) official Dr. Michael Ryan said during a Tuesday press briefing. “Today, we’re dealing with 200,000 a day.” “This epidemic is accelerating,” Ryan added. Ryan also said that the global community should not be surprised if death rates start to rapidly increase, noting the “lag time” it takes for the coronavirus to run its course after cases spiked in June and early July. “We’ve only really experienced this rapid increase in cases over the last five to six weeks,” Ryan said. “So I don’t think it should be a surprise if the deaths start to rise again.” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top health official on the White House Coronavirus Task Force, also warned this week that the U.S. has not passed its first phase of the coronavirus as cases continue to spread. “We are still knee-deep in the first wave of this,” Fauci said during a livestream Monday on social media. “Rather than looking at the public health effort versus economic opening as if they were opposing forces… we should use the public health effort as a vehicle and a pathway to get to safe reopening,” Fauci said. President Trump took to Twitter Thursday to voice his frustration at the ever-increasing coronavirus numbers. “For the 1/100th time, the reason we show so many Cases, compared to other countries that haven’t done nearly as well as we have, is that our TESTING is much bigger and better,” Trump wrote. “We have tested 40,000,000 people. If we did 20,000,000 instead, Cases would be half, etc. NOT REPORTED!” Like Trump, DeSantis is pushing to have schools reopen in the fall, citing concerns over an “education gap” that he believes online learning has caused. “I want our kids to be able to minimize this education gap that I think has developed,” DeSantis said Thursday during a news conference in Jacksonville. “In spite of good efforts with the online, it’s just not the same. So I worry about that gap.” DeSantis’ conference came one day after the Palm Beach County School Board agreed that classes, set to begin in August, will be held online for the 2020-2021 school year. The final vote on whether or not classes in Palm Beach will be held virtually or in person is slated to take place July 15, according to local news outlet WPTV. DeSantis added that parents should be able to make the decision to have their children take online classes if they are uncomfortable with them attending in-person classes. “If a parent wants to opt for virtual education, they should absolutely be able to do that,” DeSantis said. “We shouldn’t be forcing them to do any kind of decisions.”

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Title: Firms tied to Democratic reps, their spouses got millions in PPP loans WASHINGTON — A handful of businesses associated with Democratic lawmakers collected millions of dollars worth of Paycheck Protection Program loans after it was revealed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband also benefited from the stimulus deal. Companies linked to Reps. Matt Cartwright (D. Pa), Conor Lamb (D. Pa), TJ Cox (D. Calif) and Harley Rouda (D. Calif) received coronavirus loans, as did the family law firm of New York Democratic Rep. Anthony Brindisi, according to the data released by the Small Business Administration on Monday. Businesses linked to Cox collected up to $1.7 million in federal bailouts. His Madera nut processing factory received a loan between $100,000 and $350,000, as did an assisted living center of which he still has a financial stake worth up to $1 million, SBA and financial disclosure filings show. An affordable housing firm where the Democratic congressman was listed as director in 2019 also got between $350,000 to $1 million from the federal government, but a spokesperson said he resigned as director last year. “TJ Cox built and is now proud to be a passive minority investor in an almond processing plant that has created many Central Valley jobs,” campaign manager Amanda Sands told The Post. “Unlike the large publicly traded companies that received millions in PPP funding, the plant received $350,000 in loans that will protect agriculture jobs here in the Valley during the COVID-19 crisis,” she continued, saying the loan was acquired through “proper channels.” The family law firm of Anthony Brindisi, who represents the upstate Utica area, also received a loan of $150,000, the records show. A spokesman for the first-term congressman’s office said he was no longer a partner at the firm since becoming a member of the House and did not apply for the PPP loan. His father and sister still work at the company, Brindisi, Murad & Brindisi Pearlman LLP, and he was listed as a partner there in 2019, financial records show, declaring an income of between $50,001 and $100,000. In an April interview with WRVO radio the congressman complained that small local businesses were not getting enough of the funding from Congress, saying many mom and pop businesses lacked “the accountants and lawyers on staff to walk them through the intricacies of this program.” Trident Holdings, an LLC which has various investments in real estate businesses in the Midwest, received a loan of between $350,000 and $1 million, according to the SBA. Rep. Harley Rouda’s wife Kaira Rouda sits on the board. The Mattress Factory contemporary art museum in Pittsburgh where Rep. Conor Lamb’s wife Hayley Haldeman serves as interim executive director also took between $150,000 and $300,000 in PPP funding. Meanwhile, Rep. Matt Cartwright’s former law firm, Munley Law, where his wife still works, took between $350,000 and $1 million in coronavirus loans, according to the SBA. Cartwright’s wife, Marion Munley, also sits on the American Association for Justice Education Fund Board and they took between $150,000 and $350,000 in PPP bailouts. Their offices did not immediately respond to request for comment. The Paycheck Protection Program was designed to sustain the income of workers who have been furloughed during the coronavirus crisis, but several members of Congress faced a backlash when it was revealed their family companies raked in millions. The loans can be converted into grants if companies have up to 500 employees. A car dealership owned by Texas GOP Rep. Roger Williams, one of the wealthiest members of Congress, received a loan, while a restaurant chain which received a $15 million loan returned the funds after it was revealed Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell’s husband works as a lawyer for the company. He denied he was involved in the application process.

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Title: District judge asks appeals court to revive Michael Flynn case US District Judge Emmet Sullivan is asking appeals court judges to reconsider an order that he dismiss Michael Flynn’s prosecution. Sullivan’s lawyers on Thursday argued in an appeal that a 2-1 ruling by a judicial panel last month ordering him to drop the case was a “dramatic break from precedent that threatens the orderly administration of justice.” Sullivan is asking for the full US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit to review the panel’s decision. Democrats allege that the Justice Department is only seeking to drop the prosecution to please President Trump, who often bemoaned Flynn’s treatment by the FBI. Flynn, who briefly served as Trump’s White House national security adviser, was fired in February 2017 and then pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about discussing sanctions and a UN vote in December 2016 with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Flynn says he did not intentionally lie and the Justice Department said in May it would drop the case, finding FBI agents including Peter Strzok had no valid basis to interview Flynn days into Trump’s presidency. The Justice Department said it wanted to drop the case because of investigative misconduct. Transcripts of the calls between Flynn and Kislyak were released in late May, showing Flynn did discuss sanctions and the UN vote. Republicans said the transcripts show “there was nothing improper” about the substance of the calls, which Flynn made with the knowledge of other Trump transition officials. In pleading guilty to lying to the FBI, Flynn agreed to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, which ultimately found no evidence that Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia. Flynn also avoided charges for admittedly working as an unregistered agent of Turkey and making false statements to the Justice Department about that work. Flynn business partner Bijan Rafiekian was convicted last year on those charges and faced up to 15 years in prison before his conviction was overturned. The Justice Department is moving to retry Rafiekian.

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Title: Simone Biles talks Olympics, Larry Nassar and protests in Vogue She’s the most decorated American gymnast in the world — and now Simone Biles can add a Vogue cover to her mantle, too. The 23-year-old made her debut in the fashion bible’s August issue, opening up about the Olympics being postponed due to the coronavirus, the USA Gymnastics sex abuse scandal and the nationwide protests against racism and police brutality. “I felt kind of torn and broken,” Biles — who is widely regarded as the greatest gymnast of all time — said about learning she’d have to wait until next July to compete in the Olympic Games. “Obviously it was the right decision, but to have it finalized — in a way, you feel defeated because you’ve worked so hard.” In quarantine, Biles, who holds 30 Olympic and World Championship medals, tried to stay in shape by doing twerk YouTube videos and handstand challenges. She was finally able to resume training in mid-May after the World Champions Centre reopened, the mag reported. But it wasn’t just having to rearrange her training plans that brought Biles to tears — she also dreaded having to work with USA Gymnastics for an extra year. “I just started crying,” she said. “Another year of dealing with USAG. That, I don’t know if I can take.” The elite athlete has been an outspoken critic of the organization amid the scandal involving its disgraced former doctor Larry Nassar, who is serving a life sentence on charges of child pornography and sexual misconduct. She explained why it had been important for her to come forward, in January 2018, about the abuse she suffered at Nassar’s hands. “For me, it was a weight that I carried so heavily on my chest, so I felt like, if I shared it with people, then it would be a relief for me,” Biles told the glossy. “And I knew that by sharing my story, I would help other survivors feel comfortable and safe in coming forward.” In January, USAG offered Nassar’s victims, including Biles, a $215 million settlement as part of a plan to exit bankruptcy — but Biles said money alone won’t address all the wrongs. “We need to figure out why it happened, when it happened, and who knew what, when,” Biles said. “We can’t feel comfortable promoting our sport if we fear that something might happen like this again because they’re not doing their part,” she continued, referring to USAG and the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee. The cover story also quotes Biles speaking about her experiences with racism in the sport during an event in Manhattan in March at the Lower Eastside Girls Club. “They focused on my hair. They focused on how big my legs were,” she told the dozens of tween girls. “But God made me this way, and I feel like if I didn’t have these legs or these calves, I wouldn’t be able to tumble as high as I can and have all of these moves named after me.” Speaking to the mag about the widespread protests sparked by the May 25 police-involved death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Biles said: “We need change.” “We need justice for the Black community,” Biles continued. “With the peaceful protests, it’s the start of change, but it’s sad that it took all of this for people to listen.” “Racism and injustice have existed for years with the Black community. How many times has this happened before we had cell phones?” “We tried peaceful protesting,” Biles added, citing Colin Kaepernick, who was infamously shunned from the NFL after kneeling during the national anthem. “They took his whole entire career away from that poor man. And look at us now,” she said. “It’s working. You just have to be the first and people will follow.”

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Title: Michigan to require health workers to get implicit bias training Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer issued an order Thursday requiring medical professionals to undergo “implicit bias” training before getting licenses — citing the disproportionate impact COVID-19 has on people of color, according to reports. Whitmer signed an executive directive to develop rules to require the training following a recommendation from her Coronavirus Task Force on Racial Disparities, according to the Detroit Free Press. Implicit bias training aims to help people recognize unconscious prejudices, such as racism. “COVID-19 has had a disparate impact on people of color due to a variety of factors, and we must do everything we can to address this disparity. The evidence shows that training in implicit bias can make a positive difference, so today we are taking action to help improve racial equity across Michigan’s health care system,” Whitmer said. She cited experts who say implicit bias impacts the quality of health care that racial minorities receive in hospitals, ranging from testing to treatment. The coronavirus is four times more prevalent among black people than white people in Michigan, according to clickdetroit.com. As of last week, 40 percent of COVID-19 deaths were among black people despite the demographic making up just 14 percent of the state. Whitmer’s order directs the state’s Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs to come up with rules that require implicit bias training as part of the skills necessary for workers to get or renew their medical licenses. It wasn’t clear what specific training exercises or lessons the health care workers would be required to undergo.  Reps for Whitmer didn’t immediately return the Post’s request for comment. But employees working everywhere from Starbucks to the NYPD have been required to undergo implicit bias training in the past, with some experts saying the proven effectiveness of the courses remains to be seen.

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Title: Arizona duo refused to wear masks, coughed on Walmart employees An Arizona couple was busted after refusing to wear face masks in Walmart and coughing on employees, authorities said. Frank Montoya, 38, and Victoria Parra Carranza, 23, deliberately coughed on the employees when they were asked to put on masks to prevent the spread of coronavirus Wednesday at the Yuma store, police said. Employees called the police but the two customers refused to cooperate and became confrontational when officers arrived. Montoya fled the store on foot and was arrested after fighting with officers, police said. Parra Carranza attempted to interfere with Montoya’s arrest and also was taken into custody, authorities said. They were booked into the Yuma County jail on suspicion of aggravated assault, disorderly conduct and other charges. With Post wires

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Title: Colorado town threatens jail time for residents refusing to wear masks The city of Englewood, Colorado, just south of Denver, is requiring all of its residents to wear face masks amid a spike in coronavirus cases — and violators could face up to a year behind bars, coupled with a hefty fine. The emergency order, issued by City Manager J. Shawn Lewis and approved by the city council Monday, went into effect Thursday. It states that everyone over the age of 6 will be required to wear a mask while outside their homes. Face masks must be worn inside any retail or commercial business, governmental office, or health care facility, including veterinary offices, officials say. They must also be worn while waiting for or riding on public transportation, as well as inside taxis or other ride-sharing vehicles. Face masks are not required inside personal offices as long as co-workers are working at least six feet away and there are no clients or customers in the room. First offenders will be ticketed with a $15 fine, and second and subsequent offenders will have to shell out $25. However, the order states that the maximum penalty is a fine of up to $2,650, 360 days behind bars or both. “Any person charged with an offense under this Emergency Order may choose to enter a plea of not guilty and be entitled to a trial as authorized by the law,” the order states. Colorado has reported 35,116 coronavirus cases and 1,704 deaths, the latest data shows. Denver County, with 7,563 confirmed cases, has the highest infection rate in the state.

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Title: Roger Stone is 'praying' Trump will keep him out of prison Roger Stone said he was “praying” that President Trump would offer him clemency just days before the commander-in-chief’s longtime adviser was due to report to the slammer. Stone told Fox News he had not had any formal contact with the White House on a presidential pardon or commutation of his 40-month sentence, which is set to begin Tuesday. “I think I’ll be the last person to know. He hates leaks, and he hates to be told what to do. I have instructed my lawyers not to contact the lawyers at the White House,” he told Fox. “The president, who I’ve known for 40 years, has an incredible sense of fairness. He is aware that the people trying to destroy Michael Flynn, now trying to destroy me, are the people trying to destroy him,” he added, referring to Trump’s first national security adviser, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and Congress but later changed his tune and denied wrongdoing. When asked whether he hoped the president would offer him clemency, he said, “I’m praying he does” so that he can avoid prison. Stone was sentenced in February by DC federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson to more than three years in prison after being convicted in November 2019 on seven counts of obstruction, witness tampering and making false statements to Congress. The charges were lodged after special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. Stone appealed his conviction and continued to deny that he did anything wrong. Stone, who fears he will die in prison, and his lawyers filed motions to delay his date to report to a federal prison until Sept. 30, and also filed a motion for home confinement. The Justice Department said it would not oppose either request, citing its coronavirus policies, which let inmates convicted of nonviolent crimes move from incarceration to home confinement. Stone told Fox he has a “lifelong history of asthma,” and provided the court with “extensive health records and studies” from his doctor, but that Jackson denied his motion. The Justice Department also opposed Stone’s latest motion to appeal the judge’s decision. Stone told Fox News he and his legal team are waiting for a ruling from the appeals court. When asked whether he’d prefer a pardon or a commutation of his sentence, Stone said “either one obviously would have an effect, in my opinion, of saving my life.” A pardon clears a defendant of the crime he or she committed, while a commutation reduces or eliminates jail time, but leaves the conviction intact. “I have deep concerns about going to a prison where there absolutely is COVID virus, and, therefore, either one would have an effect of saving my life,” Stone said. “If I should be fortunate enough to get a commutation, I would continue to fight for vindication.” Stone spoke a day after Twitter and Instagram suspended his accounts for a post in which he appeared to facetiously threaten Jackson.

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Title: Black mom sues Baltimore restaurant for being denied service over dress code A black woman who was refused service at a Baltimore restaurant due to her 9-year-old son’s outfit is suing for at least $150,000 in damages, alleging they were denied solely due to their race. A clip posted to Twitter last month shows Marcia Grant, of Baltimore, being told by a white manager at Ouzo Bay on June 21 that the restaurant couldn’t accommodate her and her son Dallas due to the boy’s athletic shorts, which violated its dress code. But the footage also showed a nearby white child wearing an “outfit almost identical” to Grant’s son who was allowed to eat at the Greek seafood spot, according to the woman’s discrimination lawsuit and attorney Donte Mills. “The effects of this will last for the rest of his life,” Mills told The Post Thursday of the potential impact on Grant’s son. “Imagine now, a 9-year-old child has been told he wasn’t good enough because of the color of his skin. In the future, when he walks into rooms, will he feel inadequate?” Hours after the visit, Atlas Restaurant Group said it was “sickened” by the incident and put the manager on indefinite leave. He and a second manager were later fired, the Baltimore Sun reports. “This is something that he’s going to have to live with for the rest of his life,” Grant told the newspaper last month of the incident’s potential impact on her son. “It doesn’t heal like a wound would.” But in a statement issued ahead of Grant’s lawsuit filed July 2, the Atlas Restaurant Group said its dress code was “applied equally” to her son and the white child while calling on Grant to release the full 10-minute video she took during her visit. Grant’s suit, meanwhile, claims there was “no apparent distinction” between her son’s outfit and that of the white child who was permitted to eat at the restaurant, WJZ-TV reports. An attorney for Atlas, Scott Marder, claims all customers must adhere to its dress code “regardless of their race” and has accused Grant of going on an “orchestrated media tour” — an apparent reference to her appearance on “Good Morning America,” the Baltimore Sun reports. Anchor Michael Strahan invited Grant’s son to dinner during the appearance, the newspaper reports. “I can only imagine it was based on the fact that Dallas was black,” Grant told the former NFL star of why she thought her son was denied. Since the incident, Atlas Restaurant Group has retrained staff and is forming a corporate social responsibility board, a spokesman told the Sun. “We will continue to reinforce our commitment to equity, fairness and inclusion for everyone,” spokesman Joe Sweeney said in a statement. Dallas, meanwhile, has been left shaken by the incident, Mills said. “He wants people not to be racist,” the attorney said of his discussions with the boy. “Because when you’re racist, you can hurt people’s feelings. It’s harmful, it’s hurtful, and that’s the effect he took from it. You feel like you’re not enough — and to make a 9-year-old feel that way, that’s unimaginable.”

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Title: Canadian supermarket employee filmed cleaning shopping baskets with own spit A Canadian grocery store employee was suspended after he appeared to use his own saliva to clean shopping baskets amid the coronavirus pandemic — in a disturbing incident caught on camera, according to reports. Toronto resident Marta Casimiro was shopping in a local FreshCo supermarket when she spotted the unidentified man seeming to spit into a small white towel before using it to wipe down baskets, according to CityNews. Outraged and disgusted, she filmed the sickening act and reported it to the store’s manager. “I couldn’t believe that. I was in shock…I feel sick,” she told the outlet. Casimiro’s worries about the health-ramifications from the contaminated carts, however, were ignored by the supermarket manager — who she said refused to take her concerns seriously. “The [manager] protects his worker. He said he didn’t want to see the video. He didn’t believe me and he treated us very badly,” she told CityNews. She then sought help from higher-level management at FreshCo, only to hear back many days later that the cleaner was suspended, the outlet reports. “We cannot allow such things to be overlooked. I’m furious and very disappointed,” Casimiro said. “We are living in a pandemic…how do you think we feel? This is terrorism for me.” Sobeys, the parent company of FreshCo, said the employee was a third-party service provider and confirmed he is no longer working at the store in a statement provided to CityNews. “[It is] completely against the standards we work so hard to achieve in our stores each day,” Jacqueline Weatherbee, the Vice President of Communications & Corporate Affairs at Sobeys, told the outlet. “The health and safety of our customers and teammates is our top priority — that has never been more true than right now, through the COVID-19 pandemic.” Sobeys has also launched an internal investigation to gather more information on the FreshCo employee and the Toronto store, Weatherbee added.

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Title: Trump rips Supreme Court ruling, calls New York a ‘hell hole’ WASHINGTON — President Trump on Thursday said he was “not satisfied” with the Supreme Court’s ruling that a New York grand jury can subpoena his tax returns, lashing his native New York as a “hell hole.” “From a certain point I’m satisfied, from another point I’m not satisfied because frankly this is a political witch hunt, the likes of which nobody’s ever seen,” Trump told reporters at the White House. Supreme Court justices ruled earlier Thursday that the president is not immune from subpoenas and criminal investigations, allowing Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. to seek eight years of Trump’s tax returns, which have been a closely guarded secret. The court also blocked a similar effort by congressional investigators, arguing the request was too broad, before punting both cases to a lower court and keeping Trump’s records under wraps for the foreseeable future. “It’s a pure witch hunt. It’s a hoax, just like the Mueller investigation was a hoax, which I won,” Trump continued. “This is just another hoax.” “This is purely political. I win at the federal level and we win very decisively so they send it to New York and you know what’s going on with New York — everyone’s leaving and it’s turned out to be a hell hole and they better do something about it because people are leaving New York,” he said. The president also railed against the decision on Twitter, calling the verdict “unfair” to his administration. However, Trump’s personal attorney Jay Sekulow, who argued the case, welcomed the decision 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.

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Title: Supreme Court rules large area of Oklahoma is Native American reservation The US Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a large swath of eastern Oklahoma remains a Native American reservation, a decision that could cast doubt on hundreds of convictions and possibly limit law enforcement actions in the area. The justices — in a 5-4 ruling — decided in a case involving Native American Jimcy McGirt that the site of a rape should have been considered part of a reservation based on the historical claim of the Muscogee, or Creek, Nation, making it out of bounds to state authorities. “Today we are asked whether the land these treaties promised remains an Indian reservation for purposes of federal criminal law. Because Congress has not said otherwise, we hold the government to its word,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in a decision joined by the court’s liberal members. The decision means that the area, home to 1.8 million people and Tulsa, the state’s second-largest city, is considered reservation land. “In reaching our conclusion about what the law demands of us today, we do not pretend to foretell the future and we proceed well aware of the potential for cost and conflict around jurisdictional boundaries, especially ones that have gone unappreciated for so long. But it is unclear why pessimism should rule the day. With the passage of time, Oklahoma and its Tribes have proven they can work successfully together as partners,” he wrote. Members of the tribes living in the area could become exempt from state obligations like paying taxes and Native Americans convicted in state courts could challenge on jurisdictional grounds. In a dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts said the decision will “destabilize” the state’s authority. “The State’s ability to prosecute serious crimes will be hobbled and decades of past convictions could well be thrown out,” he wrote. In a statement, Oklahoma’s three US attorneys expressed optimism that “tribal, state, local and federal law enforcement will work together to continue providing exceptional public safety” in light of the ruling. Forrest Tahdooahnippah, a Comanche Nation citizen and attorney, said the ruling in the short term should not affect felonies committed by Native Americans in the territory because they will come under federal jurisdiction. “In the long term, outside of the criminal context, there may be some minor changes in civil law,” he said. “The majority opinion points out assistance with Homeland Security, historical preservation, schools, highways, clinics, housing, and nutrition programs, as possible changes. The Creek Nation will also have greater jurisdiction over child welfare cases involving tribal members.” McGirt appealed his conviction, claiming state courts had no authority to try him for a crime committed on land that belongs to the Muscogee Nation. He is serving a 500-year sentence for molesting a child. With Post wires

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Title: Theme park tells patrons to stay silent on rides amid COVID-19 A Japanese amusement park is advising its riders not to make a peep on its roller coasters — and instead “scream inside your heart” to avoid spreading the coronavirus, according to new reports. The Fuji-Q Highland amusement park, located west of Tokyo, just reopened last month following a virus-related shutdown. Along with the reopening came the seemingly impossible request. But CEO Daisuke Iwata and his boss, Koichiro Horiuchi, chief executive of Fuji Kyuko Co., videoed themselves riding on the Fujiyama coaster to prove that people can stay silent on a ride barreling at 80 miles an hour with a 230-foot drop, the Wall Street Journal reported. “We received complaints that the theme park association’s request to not make loud noises was impossible and too strict,” a Fuji-Q spokesman told the paper. “That’s why we decided to release the video.” Both of the men — one of them even wearing a full suit and tie — appear completely stoic during the four-minute video. The footage ends with the message: “Please scream inside your heart.” That sparked a social media trend in which people posted stone-faced, mask-clad images of themselves on roller coasters. Fuji-Q Highland is playing along, encouraging people to use the hashtag #KeepaSeriousFace, according to the BBC. As part of the challenge, which lasts through July 17, those with the best snaps will be given free day passes to the theme park. Japan’s theme park associations issued guidelines recommending the screaming ban, and that visitors wear masks, when the facilities started reopening in May, according to the Journal. Most of the country’s theme parks, including Disneyland and Universal Studios Japan in Osaka, have adopted the guidelines, saying they are following the advice of health officials, the paper reported. Tokyo Disneyland operator Oriental Land Co. told the Journal that screaming violations won’t be punished. Japan has reported 20,613 coronavirus cases and 982 deaths, according to the latest stats from Johns Hopkins University.

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Title: White House reporter tests positive for COVID-19 A White House journalist has tested positive for the coronavirus after attending two press briefings this week. The news follows a national surge in COVID-19 diagnoses, though new cases in Washington, DC, remain low. White House Correspondents’ Association president Jonathan Karl said in an email that the journalist is asymptomatic and did not linger in press workspaces. “The individual attended briefings on Monday 7/6 and Wednesday 7/8 afternoons and wore a mask the entire time they were on the White House complex,” Karl wrote. “The individual is asymptomatic. We are contacting those who the individual recalled being in closer contact. Other than the briefings, this person did not spend time working out of the White House and was only in briefing room itself, not elsewhere in our workspace.” The White House is offering free tests to reporters who were in proximity to the person. The diagnosis is one of the first for White House journalists. Many suspected cases early in the pandemic proved to be false alarms. Journalists at the White House are allowed to pace the West Wing driveway to engage with officials and are allowed to walk through parts of the West Wing that lead to press officer desks. Many White House staffers don’t wear masks. Previously, aides close to President Trump have caught the deadly virus without passing it on to the commander-in-chief. In May, a personal valet to Trump and White House coronavirus task force spokeswoman Katie Miller both tested positive.

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Title: Man spits at coffee shop owner after being booted for not wearing mask A patron at a Virginia coffee shop flew off the handle when the shop owner told him to leave because he wasn’t wearing a mask, according to a report. The unidentified man stormed out of Abyssinia Market and Coffee House in Alexandria, but not before spitting on store owner Lily Damtew — and returned later to hurl a bowl of food at the shop, the Alexandria Times reported Thursday. “For me, wearing a mask is protecting me and then my family and friends and everyone around me,” Damtew told the outlet. “I have very sensitive customers. (Most of my) customers are neighborhood people. I know them well. I’m protecting the community.” The ugly encounter unfolded around 7:40 a.m. Sunday, when the man walked into the Jefferson Street coffee house without a mask, ignoring a sign posted on the door saying the face coverings are required. “He’s like, ‘I’m not wearing a mask. I don’t have to wear a mask anywhere I go,'” Damtew said. “‘Virginia doesn’t support this. Alexandria doesn’t support this.’ And I said, ‘Yes, there’s a law if you go into certain places you have to wear a mask.’ And after that he got very upset.” “At that point (he said), ‘You people, if we do this to you, you people,’ ” said Damtew, who is black. “It was getting worse so I said, ‘Please leave,’ and he wasn’t leaving. He said a lot of things. He used the B-word. He used the F-word. He called me ugly something.” Eventually, the man — whom she described as tall, skinny and white — left after she held the door open, but spat on her feet as he walked past her. Damtew, who was alone in the shop, called the police and a neighbor, who was only identified as Jean. “She was crying on the phone when she asked me to come down,” Jean told the Times. “By the time we got there, she had calmed down a little bit and she was very upset, but she told us what happened, that someone had come in when she was alone and … she’s a small, petite woman.” “‘You people,'” she said. “Obviously, we understood what he meant. He was white. She was black.” Police responded and spoke to Damtew, then set out to find the culprit. That’s when he came back. “My back was to the window and I heard a bang type thing,” Jean said. “He had thrown, we don’t know what it was, the officer thought it was chicken and rice, but threw all this food all over the door, the picture window, the table that was out there.” “I jumped because of the noise,” she said. “And by the time I looked around, he was gone. We could see  him running down the street.” Cops eventually caught up with the food-hurling assailant and said he was at a local facility “receiving services,” but did not identify him. Damtew has kept the shop closed since the disturbing incident and is considering shutting down for good, she told the outlet. “Knowing that I’m there all the time by myself and even though I know I can call police I was just thinking it might be too late,” she said. “What if this guy comes back and does something else.” However, she said the outpouring of support from the community might eventually change her mind.

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Title: Classic board game Scrabble bans 236 bigoted words, slurs Scrabble just got W-O-K-E. Players of the classic board game will no longer be able to rack up points for spelling out racial and ethnic slurs, according to Scrabble officials. A total of 236 bigoted words were removed from the official Scrabble word list used at tournaments — in order to make the game friendlier to all types of people, The North American Scrabble Players Association. said Wednesday. “Removing slurs is the very least that we can do to make our association more inclusive,” NASPA CEO John Chew said in a statement. “How can we in this day tell prospective members that they can only play with us if they accept that offensive slurs have no meaning when played on a board?” But not all members of the 10,000-strong group, which was polled about whether to scrap the hateful words agreed — and some were angry about the change. “Some members threatened to leave the association if a single word were removed; others threatened to leave the association if any offensive words remained. There were a lot of good and bad arguments on both sides,” Chew said in the statement. The group didn’t say which specific words had been removed but Chew told NPR the “N word” — worth a measly eight points — was among the first to get the boot. The toy company Hasbro, which owns the rights to Scrabble, backed up the decision by changing the rules of the game “to make clear that slurs are not permissible.” The firm said it has worked to eliminate offensive words from the game’s dictionary with every new edition that’s released.

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Title: Leukemia-stricken Texas chief who led COVID-19 efforts dies A Texas county’s emergency chief, who led the community’s efforts to procure PPE for coronavirus first responders, has died from the effects of leukemia and COVID-19, according to reports. David Prasifka, Atascosa County’s emergency management coordinator, passed away on Saturday after testing positive for the virus — the very disease he had “been valiantly fighting against,” Atascosa County officials said in a Facebook post. He was 58 years old. The diagnosis came shortly after Prasifka was also diagnosed with leukemia, according to his obituary. “When this COVID Pandemic shook the United States he made sure to make everyone aware of it seriousness [sic]. He constantly worked day and night to help the community through this Pandemic,” his obituary reads. “Unfortunately before we could completely make it out, he was diagnosed with Leukemia. He was receiving very aggressive treatment, but the treatment could not help him once COVID entered his body.” Prasifka worked long hours and “stepped in at every level” when the pandemic hit his community, CNN reported. “He worked evenings, he got up early in the morning. He communicated with state officials when PPE was extraordinarily short. He scrounged all over the state for it… Sometimes that involved him driving a couple hundred miles to pick up PPE,” Atascosa Judge Robert Hurley told the network. “It didn’t matter how far he had to go, what he had to do to get it.” Prasifka also organized the county’s testing sites — an effort Hurley said saved lives. “We probably had more (testing sites) in our county than any other that are our size, at least in our area of Texas, and he ran them personally. There’s no question (he helped save lives)… We had extremely low numbers for a county our size until they opened the bars and beaches back up,” Hurley said. Last Monday, Prasifka began experiencing fainting spells and thought the cause was an abscessed tooth. But when he visited a doctor, he was diagnosed with acute leukemia and sent to San Antonio Hospital, where he received a positive diagnosis for the coronavirus. “He called me Friday morning,” Hurley told CNN. “He told me what his situation was and that he had tested positive, but that he felt great. They were going to start treating the leukemia and everything was going to be fine. He was upbeat just like he always is.” Instead, Prasifka was put on a ventilator that night and died the next morning. Prior to serving as the county’s emergency management coordinator, Prasifka spent 25 years with the Jourdanton Volunteer Fire Department, eventually working his way up to chief. Atascosa county has reported 148 positive cases and two deaths as of Wednesday, according to the John Hopkins University. Prasifka is survived by his wife, four sons and five grandchildren.

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Title: Esper tells Congress he wasn't briefed on Russian 'bounties' Defense Secretary Mark Esper says he was not briefed on alleged Russian “bounties” to kill US troops in Afghanistan — and that he would have been if there was credible intelligence. Esper’s under-oath testimony Thursday to the House Armed Services Committee follows a bombshell report last month that claimed President Trump was briefed on Russian bounties and didn’t act. Trump denies he was briefed and denounced the report as “another made up by Fake News tale that is told only to damage me.” Esper’s testimony implicitly supports Trump’s version of events. “Congressman, to the best of my recollection I have not received a briefing that included the word bounty,” Esper testified. “If it was a credible report — that’s important, a credible corroborated report that used those words, certainly, it would have been brought to my attention by the chain of command,” Esper added. Republican Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio elicited the response, telling Esper that committee members already knew “the answer” to whether Esper was briefed on the alleged Russian bounties before the public reporting. “Things that haven’t happened are not classified,” Turner said, asking Esper point-blank whether he was briefed about Russian bounties in Afghanistan. Rep. Bill Keating (D-Mass.), however, had Esper concede that he did learn about alleged Russian “payments,” just not “bounties.” “You can acknowledge, since you acknowledged there was no bounties, that indeed there were reports that mentioned payments? Is that correct?” Keating pressed. “Congressman, that’s correct,” Esper replied. Esper said that in February he read about Russian payments “when it came out in an intelligence piece of paper,” but that two US generals in Afghanistan pursued the tip and “neither thought the reports were credible.” “The illegal leaks are terrible, they’re happening across the government, particularly in the Defense Department,” Esper said. “It jeopardizes our troops, and it is just damaging to our government and our relationships with our allies and partners.” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said last week that the intelligence on “bounties” was unconfirmed, and may never be confirmed due to the reporting. “We will not be able to get — very likely not be able to get a consensus on this intelligence because of what was leaked to the New York Times,” McEnany said.

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Title: Protesters in Serbia clash with police over coronavirus restrictions BELGRADE – Serbian police fired tear gas at anti-government protesters after being pelted with flares and stones on Wednesday as thousands protested in front of the Belgrade Parliament despite warnings that such gatherings could spread coronavirus infections. The evening before, violence erupted when a crowd stormed Parliament in protest of plans to reimpose a lockdown following a new spike in COVID-19 cases. Forty-three police officers and 17 protesters were injured and there were 23 arrests. Although President Aleksandar Vucic hinted Wednesday he may back down from his plan to introduce a weekend lockdown, demonstrators began gathering in front of the Serbian Parliament building around 6 pm. In his address to the nation Wednesday, Vucic called on people to stop attending anti-government rallies to avoid a further spread of the coronavirus. “There are no free beds in our hospitals. We will open new hospitals,” Vucic said. He accused far-right groups and unspecified regional “intelligence officials” of orchestrating riots to “undermine Serbia’s position.” Most of the protesters on Wednesday evening wore face masks, blew whistles and shouted “Vucic leave!” as they faced off with riot police guarding the Parliament complex. Some threw stones and flares at police who responded with volleys of tear gas. Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic said 10 policemen have been injured. He did not say how many demonstrators have been hurt. TV footage showed policemen beating up protesters. Violence also erupted in the northern town of Novi Sad, Nis in the south and Kragujevac in central Serbia when police clashed with anti-government protesters. Vucic on Wednesday said he had ultimately advised the government and health authorities not to introduce a new lockdown in Belgrade. The government will announce a new set of restrictive measures on Thursday, he said. Serbia, a country of 7 million, has reported 17,076 COVID-19 cases and 341 deaths. Health authorities say hospitals are running at full capacity and staff are exhausted. The number of new infections rose to 357 on Wednesday from 299 on Tuesday. Critics say the government’s decisions to allow soccer matches, religious festivities, parties and private gatherings to resume and parliamentary elections to go ahead on June 21 are to blame for the new surge in infections. The government blames a lack of sanitary discipline among the public, especially in nightclubs.

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Title: Ex-Manhattan US Attorney Berman tells lawmakers about ouster Ex-Manhattan US Attorney Geoffrey Berman was expected to tell lawmakers Thursday that Attorney General William Barr pressured him to resign before he was ultimately canned by President Trump — and that the Justice Department put out a press release saying he had quit when he hadn’t. Berman was expected to say that Barr warned him that getting fired would not be good for his resume or job prospects and tried to persuade him to take a high-level Justice Department post in the capital, according to Axios, which obtained a copy of his remarks. Berman was to testify during a closed-door hearing of the Democrat-led House Judiciary Committee about his ouster. In the statement, Berman detailed conversations he had with Barr in the days and hours leading up to Trump firing him from his post as the top prosecutor with the Southern District of New York. The document said the AG told him he should take a different job, running the Justice Department’s Civil Division, because “the role would be a good resume builder” and would help him “create a book of business” once he returned to private practice. Berman said in the statement that on June 18, he got an email from a Barr staffer saying the attorney general wanted to meet him the next day at the Pierre Hotel in New York. “The meeting took roughly 45 minutes and was held in the Attorney General’s hotel suite … There were sandwiches on the table, but nobody ate,” Berman said. Berman wrote that Barr started the meeting by saying he wanted him to resign and take a job overseeing the Justice Department’s Civil Division to clear the way for SEC Chairman Jay Clayton to be nominated to replace him. Berman said he told Barr he liked Clayton but that Clayton was unqualified because he lacked criminal experience. Berman said he also told Barr “there were important investigations in the Office that I wanted to see through to completion.” After he expressed his reluctance to resign and said he would need to be forced out, Barr “added that getting fired from my job would not be good for my resume or future job prospects.” Berman says he had a short call with Barr at 7:21 p.m. Friday, June 19, and asked Barr if he would let him wait until Monday to have their final conversation, the website reported. Barr said no and that he would call him on Saturday. “That is the last time I spoke to the Attorney General or anyone on his staff,” he wrote. “Sometime after 9:14 p.m. on Friday I became aware that DOJ issued a press released that I would be ‘stepping down.’ That statement was false,” Berman wrote. Berman arrived on Capitol Hill before noon. Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) vowed last month that the panel would “immediately open an investigation” into Berman’s ouster. Barr had told NPR that Berman was already on thin ice with Trump. “Obviously all US attorneys are appointed by the president and can be removed by the president,” Barr said. “And New York is one of the preeminent offices in the Justice Department. The president had never made an appointment to that office.” The Southern District has prosecuted a number of Trump associates, including Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, who served a prison sentence for lying to Congress and campaign finance crimes, and has also been investigating Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and his associates.

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Title: What happened to the murder hornets invading the US? They’re not buzzing off! Murder hornets appear to be spreading south with a new confirmed sighting in Washington state — where people have scrambled to set up more than 1,000 traps since reports of the insect being found in the US for the first time surfaced earlier this year, a state official told The Post. One of the jumbo stingers — a queen — was found nearly dead on a woman’s porch on June 6 in Bellingham, roughly 15 miles south of Custer, where the deadly hornets were first spotted, according to the Washington State Department of Agriculture. “They are strong fliers so they can spread very far distances if they want to,” said WSDA public engagement specialist Karla Salp. “The biggest risk to humans would be if you stepped in a nest and were stung multiple times, and they nest in the ground, so it’s easier to miss.” The department plans to trap and tag the species’ worker hornets in order to follow them to nests — then extinguish the colonies with pesticides, Salp said. At least four other confirmed sightings of the species, officially named Asian giant hornets, have been reported in Washington, including a dead queen found in a road in Cluster on May 27. Others have surfaced farther north in British Columbia. Salp said her department has received hundreds of reports from all over the country in recent months, but no murder hornets have been confirmed in the US outside of Washington state. “Unfortunately a lot of people are killing bumblebees thinking they are Asian giant hornets,” she said. “That’s doing more harm than good.” The invasive insect, which can grow up to 2 inches long, are a threat to honey bees — which they can decapitate in seconds. While a sting to humans isn’t usually fatal, the host of an extreme nature show described being stung as “Searing pain! Absolute searing pain!” Japan attributes 50 human deaths a year to the nasty buzzers. Roughly 500 “citizen scientists” in the northwestern section of Washington state have set up 1,000 traps using instructions provided by the WSDA, such as using juice as bait. “The best thing people can do is to learn how to properly identify them and report them,” Salp said.

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Title: Early test results show how swiftly COVID-19 crippled NYC The first batch of results for patients tested for the coronavirus reveals how swiftly the pandemic spread through New York earlier this spring — particularly in black and Asian communities and the outer boroughs, according to a new study. The analysis of 46,793 patients tested for COVID-19 between March 8 and April 10 by Northwell Health’s lab found that 57 percent were infected with the killer bug. Nearly a third, or more than 8,000, of the positive patients were sick enough to require hospitalization, the review by Northwell’s Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research found. The results were published in the medical journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. The study found that 68 percent of patients tested from Queens were infected with COVID-19, followed by positive rates of 62 percent in Brooklyn and 59 percent in The Bronx. The lowest positive rates were for patients in Westchester County with 46 percent and Suffolk County, 51 percent. A racial breakdown revealed that 68 percent of black patients tested positive, followed by 62 percent of Asian residents and 55 percent of whites. Black males had the highest infection rate — 72.1 percent, followed by Asian males, 71.6 percent. “Our data reveal that [COVID-19] incidence emerged rapidly and almost simultaneously across a broad demographic population in the region. These findings support the hypothesis that … infection was widely distributed prior to virus testing availability,” the study said. Many of the first patients tested in hospitals and outpatient clinics were already sick or exhibiting symptoms of the coronavirus. During the earliest days of the pandemic, testing capacity was largely limited to those exhibiting symptoms of the coronavirus. After a months-long lockdown and imposition of social distancing rules, New York has largely curbed COVID-19 infections and is now ordering visitors from 19 other hot-spot states to quarantine when they enter New York to prevent another flare-up here.

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Title: South Korea uses drones to thank frontline workers amid COVID-19 Advertisement Colorful drones lit up the night sky in South Korea in a stunning tribute to front-line workers and message of encouragement for residents battling the coronavirus pandemic. Three hundred unmanned devices were used in the 10-minute light show over the Han River in Seoul on Saturday, which wasn’t announced beforehand to discourage large crowds from gathering, CNN reported. The drones were used to create images of the South Korean flag and safety measures, including washing hands, wearing face masks and practicing social distancing. The show was capped with the drones forming the message “Thanks to you” with a heart and then “Cheer up, Republic of Korea.” South Korea has seen 13,293 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 287 deaths as of Thursday, according to the country’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Title: Michael Cohen taken into custody after restaurant jaunt Thanks for contacting us. We've received your submission. Michael Cohen landed back behind bars Thursday after The Post’s exclusive report on his evening out at a Manhattan restaurant led federal officials to review his release from prison, a source familiar with the matter revealed. “That dinner caught the eye of those at [the Bureau of Prisons] who feel he was released on furlough only due to the coronavirus situation but is acting like he’s a free man and not out under supervision,” the source said. “The Post article was a catalyst to take a closer look.” Cohen, 53, was taken into custody during a meeting with federal probation officials in Lower Manhattan, defense lawyer Jeffrey Levine said. When asked outside the Manhattan federal courthouse if the Post’s expose led to the move, Levine didn’t dispute it, CNN reported. “I would leave that to your viewers,” Levine said. Levine also suggested that “it probably has to do with the optics of everything,” CNN reported. The stunning development came less than a week after a photograph of President Trump’s former personal lawyer dining out with his wife and another couple at a French restaurant on the Upper East Side was published on Page One of The Post. “Today, Michael Cohen refused the conditions of his home confinement and as a result, has been returned to a BOP facility,” a BOP spokesperson said. Last week, Levine claimed that Cohen’s July 2 meal at a sidewalk table outside Le Bilboquet, around the corner from his Park Avenue apartment, “did not violate any of the terms and conditions of his release.” But experts told The Post that the brazen, leisurely dinner — which didn’t end until around 11:30 p.m., as workers were preparing to close the eatery — might be enough to send him back to prison. Another Cohen defense lawyer, Roger Adler, told The Associated Press that his jailing was an “overly draconian response to what was at worst poor judgment.” Adler also said that Cohen thought that being on medical furlough “did not prohibit venturing beyond his apartment and dining out.” A memo issued Thursday by the federal Residential Reentry Management Office in Brooklyn — and shown to reporters outside the Manhattan federal courthouse by Levine — said that Cohen had “failed to agreed to the terms of Federal Location Monitoring.” The memo said that the “BOP is requesting remand for failure to comply” and authorized his “immediate transfer” to the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, “pending further designation.” WATCH: NBC Producer Adam Reiss shares a tick tock of the past few hours, as Michael Cohen was taken back into custody. "[He was just] going to sign some documents … maybe be fitted for an ankle bracelet. And we were waiting [and] his son was out here." pic.twitter.com/dk9BHAsCF7 — Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) July 9, 2020 Video of Cohen and Levine entering the Manhattan federal courthouse Thursday morning was recorded by MSNBC, which reported that Cohen said he was going inside to sign paperwork and possibly be fitted with an ankle bracelet. Cohen claimed he would be out in about 30 minutes, but hadn’t emerged two hours later — with his son waiting for him outside, MSNBC said. A woman who answered a phone listed in the name of Cohen’s wife, Laura, hung up when contacted by The Post. Cohen is supposed to be serving a three-year sentence for crimes that include tax evasion, bank fraud and lying to Congress, as well as covering up hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal. But the Bureau of Prisons released him due to the coronavirus crisis on May 20 — even though a judge had refused to reduce his sentence for the same reason two months earlier. “Ten months into his prison term, it’s time that Cohen accept the consequences of his criminal convictions for serious crimes that had far reaching institutional harms,” Manhattan federal Judge William Pauley wrote.

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Title: Feds take Ghislaine Maxwell's sheets, clothes to prevent suicide She’s gone from high-class designer duds to pure pulp. Accused Jeffrey Epstein fixer Ghislaine Maxwell has been forced to wear paper clothes and sleep on a bare mattress in her jail cell so she can’t hang herself with clothes or bedsheets like Epstein, according to a report. Authorities at the federal Bureau of Prisons have been assigned to ensure that Maxwell does not kill herself and is not harmed by other inmates while she is jailed at BOP’s Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, a source told The Associated Press. In addition to her paper clothes, Maxwell will also be confined to a cell with a roommate during her time at the facility and will be constantly monitored by prison officials, AP reported. The safety protocols are far more stringent than those applied after her ­arrest in New Hampshire last week. The new protocols were put in place after Epstein, a multimillionaire pedophile arrested for underage sex-trafficking, hanged himself last August using a bedsheet at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan. Federal authorities investigating the disgraced British socialite’s ties to Epstein arrested her in a sprawling New Hampshire mansion. She was slapped with a six-count indictment for allegedly procuring underage girls for Epstein to abuse in the United States and in London. She’s also accused of perjury for lying in a deposition about her alleged involvement in the underage-sex-trafficking scheme. Maxwell is awaiting arraignment at the Brooklyn facility, which has a past of power outages and a current coronavirus outbreak. A former warden at the lockup told The Post this week that Maxwell should be put on suicide watch during her stay there. Prosecutors in her case have asked that she remain remanded while awaiting trial, calling her an ­“extreme” flight risk, in a 10-page detention memo filed after her arrest. They added that she has about $20 million in several bank accounts in which she shuffled large sums of money last July, when Epstein was arrested. Prosecutors added she had gone to great lengths to conceal her whereabouts after Epstein’s arrest. A bail hearing is scheduled for Tuesday and her lawyers have been ordered to respond to the detention memo by 1 p.m. Friday.

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