The United States reported over 1,400 coronavirus deaths on Tuesday — the highest daily total in over a month. The U.S. death toll is nearing 196,000. During a town hall event hosted by ABC on Tuesday, President Trump repeated his claim that the coronavirus would “go away.”
President Donald Trump: “We’re going to be OK. And it is going away. And it’s probably going to go away now a lot faster because of the vaccine. It would go away without the vaccine, George. But it’s going to go away a lot faster with the vaccine.”
George Stephanopoulos: “It will go away without the vaccine?”
President Donald Trump: “Sure, over a period of time. Sure, with time, it goes away.”
George Stephanopoulos: “And many deaths.”
President Donald Trump: “And you’ll develop — you’ll develop herd — like a herd mentality. It’s going to be — It’s going to be herd-developed.”
President Trump appeared to be referencing herd immunity. Epidemiologists don’t know how many millions more people would need to be infected for the United States to reach herd immunity — or even if herd immunity is possible for the novel coronavirus. By one count, adopting a herd immunity approach could lead to the deaths of over 2 million people in the U.S.
The New York Times reports there have been over 88,000 cases of the coronavirus on nearly 1,200 college campuses around the United States. On Tuesday, Louisiana State University head coach Ed Orgeron said he was confident his team — the defending college football national champions — would have another successful season because so many players have already contracted COVID-19.
Ed Orgeron: “I think most of — not all of our players, but most of our players have caught it. … Hopefully that once you catch it, you don’t get it again. Now, I’m not a doctor. You know what I’m saying? I think they got that 90-day window, so most of the players that have caught it, we feel that they will be eligible for games.”
LSU has confirmed over 750 COVID-19 cases in the month since students returned to campus.
The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration is facing criticism for fining a JBS beef plant in Greeley, Colorado, under $16,000 after six workers — all immigrants — died at the plant from COVID-19. Nearly 300 workers became infected. One family of a deceased worker described the small fine as a “huge slap in the face.” Last year JBS reported over $50 billion in revenue.
Meanwhile, ProPublica has obtained emails showing the text of President Trump’s controversial executive order keeping meatpacking plants open during the pandemic was based largely on language written by the meat industry.
In the Gulf of Mexico, Hurricane Sally strengthened to a Category 2 storm this morning as it slowly came ashore near Gulf Shores, Alabama, with sustained winds of 105 miles per hour. Forecasters are warning of extreme life-threatening flash flooding, with up to 30 inches of rain possible along parts of the Gulf Coast from southeastern Mississippi to the Florida Panhandle. Sally is part of a record-shattering hurricane season, with the forecasters currently tracking seven tropical disturbances across the Atlantic.
In the western United States, air quality alerts remain in effect for huge swaths of California, Oregon and Washington, as thick smoke from record-shattering wildfires continues to bring some of the world’s worst air pollution to millions of people. Forecasters are hoping cooler temperatures and calmer winds will help firefighters get the upper hand on containing the blazes. Over 5 million acres have burned, and at least 35 people have been killed by fires fueled by the climate crisis.
In immigration news, a Cameroonian mother who says she was involuntarily sterilized while held at the privately owned Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia might be deported today. Pauline Binam has lived in the United States since age 2 and has been detained at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement prison for nearly three years. Last fall, Binam was reportedly subjected to invasive surgery on her reproductive organs, without her knowledge. Binam’s looming deportation comes as whistleblower Dawn Wooten, who was a nurse at Irwin, has detailed how the jail performed hysterectomies on prisoners without their consent. Human rights advocates have condemned the disturbing practices, saying forced sterilization amounts to genocide.
In related news, a key witness in an ongoing investigation into sexual assault and harassment allegations at an El Paso, Texas, immigrant prison has been deported. The 35-year-old woman from Mexico had recently told her lawyers several guards “forcibly” kissed her, and at least one touched her intimate parts. She’s one of at least three people who have come forward about the systematic sexual violence at the ICE prison. The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General launched a probe into the accusations after ProPublica and The Texas Tribune first reported them last month.
Israel has signed a U.S.-brokered deal to normalize relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. President Donald Trump presided over a White House ceremony with the three countries on Tuesday. Trump spoke before a crowd of several hundred people on the White House lawn, most of them sitting in close proximity without face masks, prompting concern from security for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who joined Trump for the ceremony.
Neither Netanyahu nor Trump mentioned the Palestinians in their remarks. Earlier in the day, Palestinian activists in the West Bank and in Gaza protested the agreements.
In more news from the Middle East, President Trump admitted Tuesday he wanted to assassinate Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2017 but did not go ahead due to opposition from then-Defense Secretary James Mattis. Trump made the admission on Fox News.
President Donald Trump: “I had a shot to take him out if I wanted, and Mattis was against it. Mattis was against most of that stuff. He’d keep you in military, but he didn’t know how to win.”
Investigative journalist Bob Woodward first reported on the assassination plan in 2018, but Trump claimed at the time the story was false.
This comes as fallout continues from the U.S. assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani earlier this year in Iraq. Unnamed U.S. officials recently told Politico that the Iranian government is weighing an assassination attempt against the U.S. ambassador to South Africa in retaliation. Iran has denied the claim. On Monday, Trump warned Iran that if it took such action, the U.S. response will be “1,000 times greater in magnitude!”
NBC News is reporting the Pentagon has been unable to corroborate press reports that the Russian government had paid bounties to the Taliban to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. General Frank McKenzie, the commander of the U.S. Central Command, said, “It just has not been proved to a level of certainty that satisfies me.”
New details have emerged about how the Rochester Police Department spent months attempting to cover up the death of Daniel Prude, a Black man who died from asphyxiation in March after police officers handcuffed him, put a hood over his head and pushed his face into the freezing cold ground for two minutes while kneeling on his back. Newly released internal documents show the department spent months attempting to block the release of video of the incident. In one email in June, the department’s deputy chief opposed releasing the video because it “could create animosity and potentially violent blow back in this community.” The police chief responded saying, “I totally agree.” Police also attempted to frame Prude, who had been suffering a mental health episode. In one police report, an officer wrote in red letters, “Make him a suspect.”
On Monday, Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren fired the city’s police chief, saying there is a “pervasive problem” in the city’s police department. On Tuesday, the Rochester City Council passed bills to authorize an independent investigation into Prude’s death, to transfer some money away from the police department and to repeal a previous vote to fund a new police station.
In Lancaster, Pennsylvania, at least seven people who were arrested Monday during protests over the police shooting of 27-year-old Ricardo Munoz are being held on a $1 million bail. Body camera footage shows a police officer shooting Munoz, who is holding a knife. Munoz’s family said he suffered from schizophrenia and paranoia.
A House committee has condemned Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration for their roles in two fatal crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia that killed all 346 people on board 737 MAX airplanes. A report by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee finds “[The crashes] were the horrific culmination of a series of faulty technical assumptions by Boeing’s engineers, a lack of transparency on the part of Boeing’s management, and grossly insufficient oversight by the FAA — the pernicious result of regulatory capture on the part of the FAA.” Ahead of the 737 MAX crashes, Boeing’s former CEO Dennis Muilenburg famously thanked President Trump for giving airline companies more latitude to regulate themselves.
For the first time in its 175-year history, Scientific American has endorsed a presidential candidate. In its new issue, the magazine’s editors back Joe Biden for president, writing, “The evidence and the science show that Donald Trump has badly damaged the U.S. and its people — because he rejects evidence and science.”
In Chicago, over 4,800 hospital and university workers with the University of Illinois hospital system are in the third day of a strike demanding safe staffing levels, better pay and more personal protective equipment amid the pandemic. The unionized workers have been working without a contract for the past year. This is Dian Palmer, president of SEIU Local 73.
Dian Palmer: “We’re going to keep fighting until we get everything that we deserve. UIC counted us out, thought it couldn’t be done. But we’re proving them wrong every day. And we’re going to fight to make sure people get better wages, better working conditions, safe staffing, and PPEs for everyone.”