Subterms
Letitia James says her office uncovered ‘years of self-dealing’
Trump tells Ohio airport crowd that Biden is ‘against God’
Another 1.18m Americans file for unemployment
Deutsche Bank gave Trump records to New York prosecutors – report
Join us today at 5pm ET for an online event with Eric Holder to discuss voter suppression in the 2020 election. Register now
Sign up to our First Thing newsletter
LIVE
Updated More
Another 1.18 million people filed for unemployment benefits last week as economists worry the expiration of enhanced unemployment benefits will lead to a sharp drop-off in household spending and set back the US economy’s near-term recovery.Claims dipped last week after two weeks of rises and were the lowest since March but the latest figure from the department of labor marked the 19th week in a row that claims have topped 1m. Before the coronavirus pandemic gripped the US, the record for weekly claims was 695,000 in October 1982.The figures come ahead of Friday’s monthly snapshot of the job market. Economists expect the unemployment rate to have dipped to 10.6% in July from 11.1% in June, a significant drop but still three times the pre-pandemic level.Americans have been receiving an extra $600 in emergency benefits since March as part of the government’s coronavirus stimulus package. But that agreement expired at the end of last month and Congress is split over a possible extension. About 30 million people have been receiving the extra cash and it has accounted for 15% of all weekly wages paid in the US.The expiration of the benefits without any replacement would likely cause a surge in evictions, hunger and poverty as well as having consequences for the wider economy.According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) the knock-on effect of removing that cash from the economy could be severe. The EPI estimated 5mn jobs could be lost by July 2021 if it is cut as consumers are forced to cut back on spending.“The $600 benefit is essential for millions of people to get food, to pay rent, to care for their children, to afford basic necessities. If it is cut off, it will mean a sharp decline in their living standards, an increase in poverty, and completely unnecessary suffering,” Heidi Shierholz, EPI senior economist and director of policy, wrote recently.“The spending generated by that $600 is supporting over 5m jobs. In other words, kill the $600 and you will kill 5m jobs – jobs in every single state,” she wrote.A recent paper from the JP Morgan and The University of Chicago argued that allowing the extra payment to expire could “meaningfully reduce” consumption. Eliminating the benefit “could result in large spending cuts and thus potential negative effects on macroeconomic activity”, the authors concluded.If the $600 payments expire and are nor replaced, the authors project that US consumption will 4.2% – a drop that exceeds the entire 2.9% fall in the Great Recession.🚨 new predictions of effects of alternative UI benefit supplements 🚨The UI supplements have expired. Congress is considering a range of options.What will happen to 1) *consumption*2) *UI replacement rates*Thread w/@JoeVavra @pascaljnoel pic.twitter.com/YdENQzgzBY— Peter Ganong (@p_ganong) July 31, 2020 More
Play Video
1:15
The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, says the Trump administration wants the removal of ‘untrusted’ Chinese apps from service in the country. Calling popular social media platforms TikTok and WeChat dangerous, Pompeo also raised concerns around data theft of intellectual property, including potential Covid-19 vaccines, through cloud-based services
Topics
Mike Pompeo
Social media
US politics
Coronavirus outbreak
TikTok
China More
While Donald Trump continues to claim the US is ‘doing very well’ in its fight against Covid-19, the figures suggest a different story. The US has the highest mortality rate in the world, with over 160,000 deaths. Guardian US chief reporter Ed Pilkington examines how Trump got it wrong
How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know
On Monday, the US surpassed 4.7m confirmed cases of infection – more than a quarter of the global total. The death rate, which has now passed over 160,000, is the highest in the world and continues to rise. Despite this, the US president, Donald Trump, has claimed that under his leadership the US is “doing very well”. Guardian US chief reporter Ed Pilkington tells Mythili Rao why the US, which was once ranked the most prepared country in the world for a potential pandemic, has failed to contain the spread of Covid-19. Ed discusses how Trump’s flawed style of leadership, his messaging and his disregard for science, along with his failure to implement a unified national approach to the virus has left the country in a perilous position. He also examines how Trump’s handling of the crisis will affect his run for re-election. More
Melbourne
Anyone required to leave home for job must carry the new Victoria DHHS document or risk a heavy fine. Here’s how to download the permitted worker permits template
Melbourne’s stage 4 restrictions; Victoria stage 3 rules
Australian stats interactive; Vic cases map More
Donald Trump stumbled through his second damaging interview in as many weeks, floundering in a conversation with the news website Axios over key issues he is tasked with responding to as president.It’s been just over two weeks since the president made a series of shocking statements in a one-on-one interview with Fox News, but he packed another host of extraordinary claims into a 37-minute interview released on Monday night by Axios.Here are the eight most glaring things Trump said to reporter Jonathan Swan.‘It is what it is’In a lengthy discussion about the US’s poor response to coronavirus, Trump described the pandemic as “under control”.Swan responded: “How? A thousand Americans are dying a day.”“They are dying. That’s true. And you – it is what it is,” Trump said. “But that doesn’t mean we aren’t doing everything we can. It’s under control as much as you can control it.”‘You can’t do that’The president then appeared unable to distinguish between different measurements of coronavirus deaths.Trump brandished several pieces of paper with graphs and charts.“United States is lowest in numerous categories. We’re lower than the world. Lower than Europe.”“In what?” Swan asked. As it becomes apparent that Trump is talking about the number of deaths as a proportion of confirmed Covid-19 cases, Swan said: “Oh, you’re doing death as a proportion of cases. I’m talking about death as a proportion of population. That’s where the US is really bad. Much worse than Germany, South Korea.”Trump responded: “You can’t do that.”‘He didn’t come to my inauguration’Trump downplayed the work of the congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis, whose funeral was held last week in Atlanta, Georgia. Instead of Lewis’s legacy, Trump focused on Lewis in relation to himself.“I never met John Lewis, actually,” Trump said. “He didn’t come to my inauguration. He didn’t come to my State of the Union speeches, and that’s OK. That’s his right.”Lewis’s fight for racial equality includes having his skull broken by state troopers during the 1965 Bloody Sunday march in Alabama. As a congressman he worked across the aisle.‘I did more for the black community than anybody’Swan pressed for an analysis of systemic racism. Trump said: “I have seen where there is a difference and I don’t want there to be a difference.”When asked why black men are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police, the president spoke about how many white people are killed by the police.Then said: “I did more for the black community than anybody with a possible exception of Abraham Lincoln, whether you like it or not.”When asked whether he did more than Lyndon B Johnson, who signed into law the Civil Rights Act in 1964 (and the Voting Rights Act in 1965), Trump didn’t really answer the question.‘I do wish her well’Trump stood by a 21 July comment where he said “I wish her well” of Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein who faces federal charges for allegedly enabling the disgraced financier’s sex trafficking of minor girls.Asked for his thoughts on Maxwell, Trump said, “Yeah, I wish her well. I’d wish you well. I wish a lot of people well.”Promotes Epstein conspiracy theoryHe also promoted the conspiracy theory that Epstein was murdered when he died in a New York jail last August. This has been disputed by the attorney general, William Barr.“Her boyfriend died in jail and people are still trying to figure out how did it happen, was it suicide, was he killed?” Trump said. “I do wish her well. I’m not looking for anything bad for her.”‘Lots of things can happen’Trump again attacked mail-in voting, which is expected to occur at higher rates in the November election because of the pandemic.“It could be decided many months later,” Trump said. “Do you know why? Because lots of things will happen during that period of time. Especially when you have tight margins, lots of things can happen. There’s never been anything like this … Now, of course, right now we have to live with it, but we’re challenging it.”‘I have heard that, but it has never reached my desk’Trump said reports that Russia had been offering bounties to the Taliban for attacks on US forces in Afghanistan were “fake news”. When Swan asked whether Trump had ever discussed the bounties with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, Trump said he had not.When Swan asked Trump about Russia supplying weapons to the Taliban, the president asserted: “I have heard that, but it has never reached my desk.” More
Negotiations on bailout package expected to resume in Washington
Trump visibly struggles to defend Covid-19 record in Axios interview
Join us for an online event with Eric Holder to discuss voter suppression in the 2020 election, Thursday at 5pm ET. Register now
Sign up to our First Thing newsletter
LIVE
Updated More
The presumptive Democratic nominee for president, Joe Biden, told Donald Trump “to step up and do your job” on Tuesday, highlighting that it had been a month since Trump most recently predicted the coronavirus would “just disappear”.“He was wrong – and more than 25,000 Americans died due to the virus last month,” Biden tweeted on Tuesday morning. “Mr President, step up and do your job before even more American families feel the pain of losing a loved one.”More than 4.7 million people in the US have been diagnosed with Covid-19 and at least 155,471 have died, according to Johns Hopkins University. While the US is home to 4% of the world’s population, the country accounts for more than a quarter of global confirmed infections.More than 30 million Americans are unemployed because of the business closures to stop the spread of coronavirus. The White House and Congress are negotiating a new economic relief package, but two key relief measures ended last week, leaving millions of families with a sudden drop in income and fewer protections from evictions.Amid these colliding crises, Trump on Monday floundered in an interview with the Axios news site, where he repeatedly insisted the US was doing better than other countries, brandishing several pieces of paper with charts to make his point.Axios’s national political correspondent, Jonathan Swan, then realized Trump was talking about how many deaths the US has had in relation to identified cases. Swan then explained the deaths as a proportion of the population was where the US was doing badly in comparison with the rest of the world. Trump responded: “You can’t do that.”Covid-19 deaths rose for a fourth week in a row to more than 8,500 people in the seven-day period that ended Sunday, according to a Reuters analysis.A surge in cases has been identified in midwestern states for the first time while fewer cases and hospitalizations were recorded in some of the country’s most populated states: Arizona, Florida, Texas and California.California has had more cases identified than anywhere in the country, but Governor Gavin Newsom said on Monday the weekly average of cases was down 21% from the previous week. He also cautioned it was too early to celebrate.“This virus is not going away,” Newsom said. “It’s not going to take Labor Day weekend off or Halloween off or the holidays off. Until we have a vaccine, we are going to be living with this virus.”The nation’s top infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, on Monday praised the state of Connecticut, which has one of the lowest infection rates in the country, because of its slow, staggered reopening process. “You are in a situation that you now, in many respects, have the upper hand, because you have such a low rate that when you do get new cases, you have the capability of containment as opposed to mitigation,” Fauci said.New York, which has also been slow to reopen compared with much of the rest of the country, also had a case positivity rate lower than 1% this past weekend. But the densely populated state and its neighbor New Jersey have seen an increase in cases in recent days.The disparate situations across the country prompted teachers from dozens of school districts, including Chicago, Milwaukee and Philadelphia, to lead protests from their cars on Monday asking for instruction to be online in the fall. More
