Five million Americans have lost their health insurance in a pandemic - yet Republicans are still trying to end Obamacare
Like Moloch, the ancient pagan god, Donald Trump is ever ready to demand that Americans sacrifice themselves for his greater good. He commanded that states open up early, and then this happened: Arizona, Florida, and Texas are looking like Wuhan redux. Come this fall, the president also expects that parents will put their children in harm’s way for the sake of his...
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California rolls back reopening plans as coronavirus cases climb – live
- Governor warns of ‘disturbing trend lines’ in hospitalizations
- Supreme court court strikes down restrictive Louisiana abortion law
- Republicans told to wear masks in House or be barred from speaking
- Fauci doubts effectiveness of vaccine due to anti-vaxxers
- Florida scientist says state asked her to change data
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Jerome Powell, the new chair of the Federal Reserve, is slated to tell Congress tomorrow that the battle with Covid-19 and its economic fallout will be long and hard-fought.
“The path forward for the economy is extraordinarily uncertain and will depend in large part on our success in containing the virus.” He adds: It’s “hard to capture in words” the lives upended.
On Monday the House passed in a vote of 234-179 the most significant expansion of the Affordable Care Act since its inception in 2010.
The vote for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Enhancement Act was largely symbolic as it is unlikely to pass in the Senate. Even if it did, Donald Trump would immediately veto it, the White House said on Monday.
The hours of debate before the vote allowed Democrats to point out, again and again, that the Trump administration is seeking to invalidate the ACA in a lawsuit before the Supreme Court that was initiated by a group of Republican attorneys general who contend the entire law is unconstitutional.
“As lives are shattered by the coronavirus, the protections of the Affordable Care Act are more important now, more than ever,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Noting that both Trump and congressional Republicans promise to preserve the law’s protections for people with preexisting medical conditions, she said: “Oh really? Then why are you in the United States Supreme Court to overturn them?”
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Coronavirus US: Florida again breaks one-day record for new cases – live
- State sets new record for second straight day
- New York sees steady decline in cases while other states see rises
- US deaths from Covid-19 have surpassed 125,000
- Reopening plans reverse quickly amid alarming increase in cases
- Survivors could lose insurance if Trump wins bid to repeal Obamacare
- Texas becomes a model for inadequate pandemic response
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The Mississippi state government has started a process that will see the Confederate battle emblem removed from the state’s flag.
Breaking: House passed it with the two-thirds majority it required. It got immediate release, meaning Senate could take it up as soon as they want.
The latest: https://t.co/Jgcddn3i34 #msleg https://t.co/rKwKGkMmWtThe legislature has been deadlocked for days as it considers a new state flag. The argument over the 1894 flag has become as divisive as the flag itself and it’s time to end it.
If they send me a bill this weekend, I will sign it. pic.twitter.com/bf3vyzuObt
The Winston-Salem Journal reports on a disturbing development in the Bubba Wallace story. Wallace, Nascar’s only black driver, led a successful campaign to rid the stock-car racing series of the Confederate flag. Last week, a noose was found in his team’s garage although a subsequent investigation found the rope had been there since last fall, and Wallace was not the subject of a hate crime. Here’s what the Associated Press has to say on the latest development:
A North Carolina racetrack has lost some partnerships after its owner advertised “Bubba Rope” for sale online days after Nascar said a noose had been found in the garage stall of Bubba Wallace, the top series’ only Black driver.
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Covid-19 survivors could lose health insurance if Trump wins bid to repeal Obamacare
- ACA prevents denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions
- Abolition could mean Covid-19 victims could be turned down
Millions of Americans who have survived Covid-19 or face future infections could lose their insurance or be barred from getting coverage should the Trump administration successfully repeal Obamacare.
The Trump administration asked the supreme court late Thursday to overturn the Affordable Care Act – a move that, if successful, would bring a permanent end to the health insurance reform law popularly known as Obamacare.
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Coronavirus live news: soldiers sent to southern Italian town amid tension over new outbreak
WHO needs $31.3bn over 12 months for vaccines; France plans 1.3m tests to find ‘hidden clusters’; Mike Pence to hold first taskforce briefing in weeks
- Global report: rationing returns to Australia as panic buying spreads
- Swedes rapidly losing trust in Covid-19 strategy, poll finds
- England: major incident declared as people flock to south coast
- UK coronavirus updates – live
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The Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp) is in talks to test a potential coronavirus vaccine developed by Italian researchers, the dean of the Brazilian university told Reuters.
With the world’s worst outbreak outside the US, Brazil has become a leading front in the global race for a vaccine, as clinical trials are likely to yield results faster in places where the virus is widespread.
Soraya Smaili, the president of Unifesp, said on Wednesday: “We are already in advanced discussions with Italy’s Lazzaro Spallanzani National Institute. We expect to bring it here, the accord is already moving forward and we’ll be able to do a lot of studies with this vaccine.”
The Italian researchers want to conduct midstage trials and final phase three studies involving thousands of subjects in Brazil, Smaili said.
Around the world at a glance:
Some powerful US senators are pushing back against an attempt by the Trump administration’s Treasury Department to weaken a watchdog panel involved with overseeing $2.4tn in pandemic aid, according to three congressional aides. The Trump administration has petitioned the US supreme court to invalidate the Obamacare law, which added millions to the healthcare safety net, seeking to scrap coverage during the novel coronavirus crisis.
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More than 9.62 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 489,208 have died, a Reuters tally showed as of 1222 GMT on Friday.
Russia reported on Friday 6,800 new coronavirus cases, the first daily rise below 7,000 since late April, taking its nationwide tally of infections to 620,794.
Trump administration asks supreme court to axe Obamacare
Democrats call legal push amid coronavirus crisis an ‘act of unfathomable cruelty’
- Coronavirus – latest updates
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The Trump administration has asked the US supreme court to invalidate the Obamacare lawthat added millions to the healthcare safety net but has been at the centre of political controversy.
The government advocate, Noel Francisco, argued in a filing late on Thursday that the Affordable Care Act (ACA), one of Ba...
Voting in the New York primary is by no means futile for Sanders supporters | Billy Richling and Francisco Navas
Voters need to understand that Sanders’ delegate candidates aren’t running against Biden’s delegate candidates – they’re running against each other
Although Joe Biden is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, voting in the New York primary on Tuesday (or during early voting) is by no means futile for progressives who were largely supporting Bernie Sanders and policies such as the Green New Deal and Medicare for All.
Related: 'Just ridiculous': what it’s like to wait five hours in line to vote in the US
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US lockdown protests may have spread virus widely, cellphone data suggests
Devices associated with protesters travelled up to hundreds of miles after rallies where few precautions were taken
Cellphone location data suggests that demonstrators at anti-lockdown protests – some of which have been connected with Covid-19 cases – are often traveling hundreds of miles to events, returning to all parts of their states, and even crossing into neighboring ones.
The data, provided to the Guardian by the progressive campaign group the Committee to Protect Medicare, raises the prospect that the protests will play a role in spreading the coronavirus epidemic to areas which have, so far, experienced relatively few infections.
The anonymized location data was captured from opt-in cellphone apps, and data scientists at the firm VoteMap used it to determine the movements of devices present at protests in late April and early May in five states: Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Colorado and Florida.Related: Protesters descend on Michigan capitol but rain washes away demonstration
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Coronavirus US live: death toll nears 80,000 as Trump rages over Russia
- Fauci and two other task force members to self-quarantine
- Coronavirus – latest global updates
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Precautions against Covid-19 infection have been stepped up at the White House but are hampered by the cramped and poorly ventilated conditions in the West Wing, Kevin Hassett, a special adviser to Donald Trump on the pandemic response, said on Sunday.
Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin has been talking to Fox News Sunday about the Trump administration’s attempts to reopen and restart the stalled US economy, and whether there will be another huge stimulus bill. Democrats who control the House want one of those but the White House doesn’t – that’s the short version.
The White House is “absolutely pushing for a payroll tax cut”, Mnuchin says. Most observers think that is a non-starter, because Democrats won’t let it. Payroll taxes, meaning deductions from regular paychecks, include funds for Social Security and Medicare, vital social benefits.
Related: US job losses have reached Great Depression levels. Did it have to be that way?
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Trump’s pick for federal court ‘too inexperienced’, Democrats say
Justin Walker, 37, is facing a Senate confirmation hearing as Mitch McConnell restarts push to confirm federal judges
A federal judge nominated to the nation’s second-most powerful court said on Wednesday that he was writing as an academic and commentator when he criticized as “indefensible” a supreme court ruling upholding the Affordable Care Act.
Justin Walker, a 37-year-old protege of the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and the supreme court Justice Brett Kavanaugh...