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It’s been a frequent Trump administration talking point on the recent spike in COVID-19 infections: Don’t worry, only a small sliver of U.S. counties is at greater risk.
 
In offering this reassurance, Vice President Mike Pence and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar have said that only 3% or 4% of counties in the country are seeing a surge in cases. Focus on the “encouraging signs,” Pence told senators last week.
But they and other administration officials are skirting a key fact: More than 20% of Americans live in those relatively few counties.The White House has repeatedly cited the low county tally, and Pence reaffirmed the point in a televised interview Sunday. He argued that states, not the federal government, should take the lead with reopening guidelines because virus outbreaks are happening in about “4% of all the counties in this country.”  
Azar asserted Friday only 3% of counties represent “hot spots” that are “very concerning.”
The emphasis on a percentage of counties makes for a misleading portrayal of the virus threat.
The White House provided The Associated Press with the full list of U.S. counties that reported increases in COVID-19 cases as of Friday. It showed 137 of the 3,142 counties in the U.S. that were under a higher alert — indeed, about 4% at the time.
But measured by population, those counties represent a vastly higher share — over 1 in 5 people in the U.S.
Altogether there are 68.3 million people living in those 137 counties, while there is a total U.S. population  of 322.9 million. That means 21.1% of U.S. residents actually live in a virus “hot spot.”
In recent weeks, the U.S. has entered a dangerous new phase of the coronavirus with big Sun Belt states showing thousands of new cases a day. Texas and Florida reversed course on parts of their reopening and clamped down on bars last week as the daily number of confirmed infections in the U.S. surged to all-time highs.
Speaking about the coronavirus threat Friday, White House coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx explained that counties large and small are being tracked by the White House task force, and that anyone living in a virus hot spot should take the necessary precautions, including social distancing and wearing a mask.
Citing increases particularly in the under-40 age group, Birx stressed that much more testing is needed because that’s the age group most likely to be infected without showing symptoms and to be “spreading the virus unbeknownst to them.”
The population figures, both county level and national, come from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey five-year estimates for 2018, the latest available.
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For years, social media platforms have fueled political polarization and hosted an explosion of hate speech. Now, with four months until the U.S. presidential election and the country’s divisions reaching a boiling point, these companies are upping their game against bigotry and threats of violence. What’s not yet clear is whether this action is too little, too late — nor whether the pressure on these companies, including a growing advertiser boycott, will be enough to produce lasting change. FILE – Reddit employees work at the company’s headquarters in San Francisco, California, April 15, 2014.Reddit, an online comment forum that is one of the world’s most popular websites, on Monday banned a forum that supported President Donald Trump as part of a crackdown on hate speech. Also on Monday, live-streaming site Twitch, which is owned by Amazon, temporarily suspended Trump’s campaign account for violating its hateful conduct rules. YouTube, meanwhile, banned several prominent white nationalist figures from its platform, including Stefan Molyneux, David Duke and Richard Spencer.  Social media companies, led by Facebook, now face a reckoning over what critics call indefensible excuses for amplifying divisions, hate and misinformation on their platforms. Civil rights groups have called on large advertisers to stop Facebook ad campaigns during July, saying the social network isn’t doing enough to curtail racist and violent content on its platform.  Companies such as the consumer goods giant Unilever — one of the world’s largest advertisers — as well as Verizon, Ford and many smaller brands have joined the boycott, some for the month of July and others for the rest of the year. New companies have been signing on to the boycott almost every day. While some are pausing ads only on Facebook, others have also stepped back from advertising on Twitter and other platforms. On Monday, Ford Motor Co. put the brakes on all national social media advertising for the next 30 days. The company says hate speech, as well as posts advocating violence and racial injustice, need to be eradicated from the sites. FILE – The Twitter and Facebook logos are seen with binary cyber codes in this illustration, Nov. 26, 2019.While the ad boycott has dinged Facebook’s and Twitter’s shares, analysts who follow the social media business don’t see it as having a lasting effect.  Raymond James analyst Aaron Kessler noted that YouTube has faced several ad boycotts in the past over hate speech and other objectionable material. Each time, it adjusted its policies and the advertisers returned. In addition, July is generally a slow month for advertising. Companies have also been cutting their ad budgets due to COVID-19, so the spending declines are not a surprise for investors. Kessler called Facebook’s stock pullback — its shares fell more than 8% on Friday, then rallied a bit Monday — a “buying opportunity.” Reddit’s action was part of a larger purge at the San Francisco-based site. The company said it took down a total of 2,000 forums, known as the site as “subreddits,” most of which it said were inactive or had few users.  The Trump Reddit forum, called The_Donald, was banned because it encouraged violence, regularly broke other Reddit rules, and defiantly “antagonized” both Reddit and other forums, the company said in a statement. Reddit had previously tried to discipline the forum. “We are cautiously optimistic that Reddit is finally working with groups like ours to dismantle the systems that enable hateful rhetoric on their platform,” Bridget Todd, a spokeswoman for the women’s advocacy organization UltraViolet, said in an emailed statement.  The group said its members met with Reddit CEO Steve Huffman via Zoom last week, encouraging him to address racism and hate speech on the platform. Despite optimism from some critics, others said it is not clear if such measures will be enough. For years, racist groups “have successfully used social media to amplify their message and gain new recruits,” said Sophie Bjork-James an anthropology professor at Vanderbilt University who specializes in white nationalism, racism and hate crimes.  “However, limiting access to a broader public will have unintended negative consequences. Far-right and white nationalist groups are increasingly gathering on encrypted apps and social media sites that do not monitor for offensive speech or violent content,” she added. “This shift allows for coordinating more violent and radical actions.” The algorithms tech companies developed to keep users glued to their services “have provided perhaps the biggest boon to organized racism in decades, as they help racist ideas find a much larger and potentially receptive audience,” Bjork-James said, adding that she is hopeful that the same companies that “helped this anti-democratic movement expand” can now help limit its impact. For its part, Twitch pointed to comments the president made at two rallies, videos of which were posted on the site.  Supporters of President Donald Trump cheer as he arrives on stage to speak to a campaign rally at the BOK Center, June 20, 2020, in Tulsa, Oklahoma.In one, a live stream of a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Trump talked about a “very tough hombre” breaking into someone’s home. The other was from a 2015 campaign rally that was recently posted on Twitch, in which Trump said Mexico sends rapists and criminals to the U.S. Twitch declined to say how long the suspension will last. The White House referred a request for comment to Trump’s reelection campaign. Tim Murtaugh, the campaign’s director of communications, said that people who want to hear directly from the president should download the campaign’s app. Reddit has  tweaked its rules and banned forums  for white nationalists  over the years in an attempt to rid its platform of vitriol, sometimes producing significant user backlash as a result. CEO Steve Huffman said earlier this month that Reddit was working with moderators to explicitly address hate speech. 
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Eight Republican lawmakers attended a White House briefing about explosive allegations that Russia secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing American troops in Afghanistan — intelligence the White House insisted the president himself had not been fully read in on.  
Members of Congress in both parties called for additional information and consequences for Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, and eight Democrats were to be briefed on the matter Tuesday morning, a day after the Republicans’ briefing. Still, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany insisted Trump had not been briefed on the findings because they hadn’t been verified.  
The White House seemed to be setting an unusually high bar for bringing the information to Trump, since it is rare for intelligence to be confirmed without a shadow of doubt before it is presented to senior government decision-makers. McEnany declined to say why a different standard of confidence in the intelligence applied to briefing lawmakers than bringing the information to the president.
Republicans who were in the briefing Monday expressed alarm about Russia’s activities in Afghanistan.
Rep. Michael McCaul, the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Adam Kinzinger were in the briefing led by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and national security adviser Robert O’Brien. McCaul and Kinzinger said in a statement that lawmakers were told “there is an ongoing review to determine the accuracy of these reports.”
“If the intelligence review process verifies the reports, we strongly encourage the Administration to take swift and serious action to hold the Putin regime accountable,” they said.
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and Texas Rep. Mac Thornberry, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, said, “After today’s briefing with senior White House officials, we remain concerned about Russian activity in Afghanistan, including reports that they have targeted U.S. forces.”
Senators reviewed classified documents related to the allegations Monday evening. The information they received was not previously known, according to one aide who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
On CNN, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi confirmed the timing of the Democratic briefing but said “it’s no substitute for what they owe the Congress of the United States.” She said that “this is as serious as it gets.”
She speculated that Trump wasn’t briefed “because they know it makes him very unhappy, and all roads for him, as you know, lead to Putin. And would he tell Putin what they knew?”
The intelligence assessments came amid Trump’s push to withdraw the U.S. from Afghanistan. They suggested Russia was making overtures to militants as the U.S. and the Taliban held talks to end the long-running war. The assessment was first reported by The New York Times, then confirmed to The Associated Press by American intelligence officials and two others with knowledge of the matter.
Republican Sen. John Cornyn told reporters Monday, “I don’t think it’s should be a surprise to anybody that the Taliban’s been trying to kill Americans and that the Russians have been encouraging that, if not providing means to make that happen.”
He added: “Intelligence committees have been briefed on that for months. so has Nancy Pelosi, so has (Democratic Senate leader) Chuck Schumer. So, this is, this is a more leaks and partisanship.”
While Russian meddling in Afghanistan isn’t new, officials said Russian operatives became more aggressive in their desire to contract with the Taliban and members of the Haqqani Network, a militant group aligned with the Taliban in Afghanistan and designated a foreign terrorist organization in 2012.  
The intelligence community has been investigating an April 2019 attack on an American convoy that killed three U.S. Marines after a car rigged with explosives detonated near their armored vehicles as they traveled back to Bagram Airfield, the largest U.S. military installation in Afghanistan, officials told the AP.  
Three other U.S. service members were wounded in the attack, along with an Afghan contractor. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on Twitter. The officials the AP spoke to also said they were looking closely at insider attacks — sometimes called “green-on-blue” attacks — from 2019 to determine if they are also linked to Russian bounties.
One official said the administration discussed several potential responses, but the White House has yet to authorize any step.
Intelligence officials told the AP that the White House first became aware of alleged Russian bounties in early 2019 — a year earlier than had been previously reported. The assessments were included in one of Trump’s written daily briefings at the time, and then-national security adviser John Bolton told colleagues he had briefed Trump on the matter. Bolton declined to comment, and the White House did not respond to questions on the matter.  
The intelligence officials and others with knowledge of the matter insisted on anonymity to discuss the highly sensitive matter.
The White House National Security Council wouldn’t confirm the assessments but said the U.S. receives thousands of intelligence reports daily that are subject to strict scrutiny.
Trump’s Democratic general election rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, used an online fundraiser Monday to hammer the president for a “betrayal” of American troops in favor of “an embarrassing campaign of deferring and debasing himself before Putin.”
“I’m disgusted,” Biden told donors, as he recalled his late son Beau’s military service. Families of service members, Biden said, “should never, ever have to worry they’ll face a threat like this: the commander in chief turning a blind eye.”
Asked about the reports on the alleged bounties, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday, “These claims are lies.”
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Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has given the European Union’s ambassador in Caracas 72 hours to leave the country. Maduro’s order on Monday came not long after the EU slapped sanctions on officials close to the socialist leader.  Maduro was also apparently angered EU leaders backed Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s interim president. Maduro said the European Union is bending to whims of U.S President Donald Trump, who like the EU support a democratic transition in Venezuela that does not include Maduro. Despite dozens of countries backing Guaido as Venezuela’s leader, Maduro remains in charge with control over the military and international support from allies including China, Russia, Iran and Cuba.  The European Union’s sanctions on dozens of Venezuelans also includes a travel ban and it freezes assets.  
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Nigeria is reopening schools for the graduating class on the advice of a task force that students get help in preparing for examinations. The chairman of the presidential task force on COVID-19 Boss Mustapha said, the federal government also lifted the ban on interstate movement outside curfew hours and reopened airports for domestic flights. Mustapha also said, President Muhammadu Bihari approved the extension of the phased lockdown for four weeks, meaning the 10 pm – 4 am nationwide curfew, restrictions on mass gatherings and sporting activities will continue. Nigeria’s mandate for face masks in public places remains in effect. So far, Nigeria has confirmed more than 25,100 COVID-19 cases and more than 570 deaths. 
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Ten people have been indicted in a complex scheme to allegedly defraud private insurance companies of more than $1 billion for medical testing.The Justice Department unsealed the indictments Monday in Jacksonville, Florida. Eight of the defendants are from Florida. The others are from Atlanta and ChicagoThe charges include conspiracy to commit health care fraud and money laundering.“The FBI views health care fraud as a severe crime problem that impacts every American,” said Special Agent Rachel Rojas. “Fraud and abuse take critical resources out of our health care system and contribute to the rising cost of health care for everyone.”  According to the indictment, the 10 suspects owned management companies that would take over small rural hospitals. They allegedly carried out expensive medical tests at private laboratories, but billed insurance companies at a higher rate as if the tests were done at the hospitals. The indictment says many of those tests were unnecessary. “Schemes that exploit rural hospitals are particularly egregious as they can undermine access to care in underserved communities,” said an inspector general in the Office of Personnel Management.   Three of the suspects were arraigned Monday. Their pleas of guilt or innocence were not announced. The seven remaining defendants will appear before a judge later this week.
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Researchers in China have discovered a new type of swine flu that is capable of triggering a pandemic, according to a study published Monday in the U.S. science journal PNAS. Named G4, it is genetically descended from the H1N1 strain that caused a pandemic in 2009. It possesses “all the essential hallmarks of being highly adapted to infect humans,” say the authors, scientists at Chinese universities and China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention.  From 2011 to 2018, researchers took 30,000 nasal swabs from pigs in slaughterhouses in 10 Chinese provinces and in a veterinary hospital, allowing them to isolate 179 swine flu viruses.   The majority were of a new kind, which has been dominant among pigs since 2016. The researchers then carried out various experiments including on ferrets, which are widely used in flu studies because they experience similar symptoms to humans, principally fever, coughing and sneezing.   G4 was observed to be highly infectious, replicating in human cells and causing more serious symptoms in ferrets than other viruses. Tests also showed that any immunity humans gain from exposure to seasonal flu does not provide protection from G4. According to blood tests, which showed antibodies created by exposure to the virus, 10.4% of swine workers had already been infected. The tests showed that as many as 4.4% of the general population also appeared to have been exposed.  The virus has therefore already passed from animals to humans but there is no evidence yet that it can be passed from human to human, the scientists’ main worry. “It is of concern that human infection of G4 virus will further human adaptation and increase the risk of a human pandemic,” the researchers wrote. The authors called for urgent measures to monitor people working with pigs.  “The work comes as a salutary reminder that we are constantly at risk of new emergence of zoonotic pathogens and that farmed animals, with which humans have greater contact than with wildlife, may act as the source for important pandemic viruses,” said James Wood, head of the department of veterinary medicine at Cambridge University. A zoonotic infection is caused by a pathogen that has jumped from a non-human animal into a human. 
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As part of measures to curb the spread of COVID-19, a Ugandan innovator has come up with a plastic shield for motorcycles to protect both driver and passenger.  The shield is seen as not just reducing body contact, which could spread the virus, but also adding security for motorcycle taxi drivers.Uganda has hundreds of thousands of motorcycles on its roads, and most of them work as taxis known as boda-bodas.But since April with the COVID-19 pandemic, the government has banned motorcycle taxis because of the close proximity between the driver and passengers.To solve that problem, Dickson Ngirani created a plastic shield to mount between them.“We believe the shield is entirely going to protect the passenger from getting contaminations on the road in the process of moving.  No. 2, he will not get in direct contact with the rider,” said Ngirani.Four months into Uganda’s lockdown, boda-boda drivers — currently allowed only to deliver goods — are struggling to make a living.Drivers such as Fred Luwaga are urging authorities to let them take passengers if they use the shield.”He says, this shield, we all as boda-boda riders should use it, because I see there’s a distance.  He says, if I am seated here, and the passenger is at the back, I don’t see how we are going to get infected by COVID-19,” he said.Uganda’s Ministry of Works and Transport says it is investigating the effectiveness of the shield.The ministry’s chief engineer, Tony Kavuma, says one concern is that passengers will wrongly believe the shield is all they need for protection.“That is the use of the masks and the helmet. A fully covered helmet. Because that one. One, it shields the rider. In case he or she is infected, they will be able to contain the droplets. That’s No. 1. Two, in case of a fall, it will also protect the head,” he said.It’s not clear when Ugandan authorities will allow passengers back onto boda-bodas.Meanwhile, Ngirani said they are manufacturing more shields in anticipation of high demand. 
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The White House is on the defensive about President Donald Trump not being briefed on reports that a Russian military intelligence unit offered bounties to Taliban militants in Afghanistan to kill U.S. soldiers.  “It was not verified,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Monday when reporters asked why the president was not told of the information. “There were dissenting opinions within the intelligence community,” she added. The White House did conduct a Monday afternoon briefing for eight House Republicans about the matter amid bipartisan calls by members of Congress for transparency.   House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants CIA Director Gina Haspel and Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe to give the full 435-member House of Representatives a briefing on the issue.  “Congress needs to know what the intelligence community knows about this significant threat to American troops and our allies and what options are available to hold Russia accountable,” Pelosi said in a statement.  
 FILE – House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, speaks during a hearing on Capitol Hill, April 12, 2018.In the Senate, the minority leader, Chuck Schumer, said he wants all 100 senators briefed by the heads of the CIA and the director of national intelligence.  “We need to know whether or not President Trump was told this information, and if so, when,” Schumer said in a statement.  Trump tweeted Sunday he was not briefed.  FILE – U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaks in Washington, March 22, 2020.”Intel just reported to me that they did not find this info credible, and therefore did not report it to me or @VP,” the president said on Twitter, referencing Vice President Mike Pence.  The New York Times was the first to report that U.S. intelligence officials had concluded months ago that the Russian unit, which has been linked to assassination attempts and covert operations in Europe aimed at destabilizing the West, had carried out the mission in Afghanistan last year and that he had been briefed about it in late March.  According to The Washington Post, U.S. forces suffered 28 deaths from 2018 to 2020. An additional number of service members also died in attacks by members of the Afghan security forces, which may have been infiltrated by the Taliban, the newspaper reported.  The intelligence originated with U.S. Special Operations forces in Afghanistan and was verified by the CIA, the Post said.  According to a former National Security Council spokesman, Ned Price, “Only infrequently would the president be briefed on raw, uncorroborated intelligence” but according to the reports that is not the case with this information “gleaned from site exploration in Afghanistan, corroborated by detainee briefings and further corroborated by broader all-source collection and analysis.” Price was among those who provided then-President Barack Obama with his daily intelligence briefing. Price also noted to VOA that various senior administration officials, including Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. envoy for Afghanistan reconciliation, “had staked out positions on how to respond to Russia. If this truly were raw, uncorroborated reporting, there wouldn’t have been high-level policy discussions regarding a response.”  Both Russia and the Taliban deny the reports of the bounties, with the Kremlin calling them “baseless and anonymous accusations.”Reaction from TalibanA spokesman for the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahid, rejected the report that the insurgents have “any such relations with any intelligence agency” and called the newspaper report an attempt to defame them.   FILE – Members of a Taliban negotiating team enter the venue hosting U.S.-Taliban talks in the Qatari capital Doha, Aug. 29, 2019.”These kinds of deals with the Russian intelligence agency are baseless — our target killings and assassinations were ongoing in years before, and we did it on our own resources,” he said. “That changed after our deal with the Americans, and their lives are secure, and we don’t attack them.”   Earlier this year, the United States and Taliban signed an “agreement for bringing peace” to Afghanistan after more than 18 years of conflict. The U.S. and NATO allies have agreed to withdraw all troops by next year if the militants uphold the deal.  A former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, Mick Mulroy, terms as disturbing the reports about Moscow paying a bounty to the Taliban, noting Russia is deemed an enemy of the United States in the U.S. national security strategy.   “We do not want a war with Russia and we do not want to start killing each other’s soldier, but there are some actions you can’t accept,” Mulroy, also a former CIA paramilitary officer, and currently an ABC News national security analyst, told VOA. “If we have solid evidence that this is being done and our forces are being killed, the gloves should be hitting the floor.” VOA National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.
 
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A Paris court has found French former prime minister Francois Fillon guilty of having used public funds to pay his wife and children for work they never performed.  
His wife, Penelope Fillon, has also been found guilty as an accomplice.  
The court has not detailed the sentence yet.  
The work had brought the family more than 1 million euros ($1.08 million) since 1998.
The scandal broke in the French media just three months before the country’s 2017 presidential election, as Fillon was the front-runner in the race. It cost him his reputation. Fillon sank to third place in the election, which was won by Emmanuel Macron.  
Fillon, who was France’s prime minister from 2007 to 2012, and his wife have denied any wrongdoing and can appeal the decision.
Penelope Fillon’s role alongside her husband drew all the attention during the February-March trial, which focused on determining whether her activities were in the traditional role of an elected official’s partner — or involved actual paid work.
Prosecutors denounced “fraudulent, systematic practices” and requested five years in prison, including a three-year suspended sentence, and a 375,000 euro (more than $415,000) fine against Francois Fillon, and a three-year suspended sentence and the same fine against his wife.
Fillon was accused of misuse of public funds, receiving money from the misuse of public funds and the misappropriation of company assets. His wife was charged mostly as an accomplice.  
During the trial, Penelope Fillon explained how she decided to support her husband’s career when he was first elected as a French lawmaker in 1981 in the small town of Sable-sur-Sarthe, in rural western France.  
Over the years, she was offered different types of contracts as a parliamentary assistant, depending on her husband’s political career.
She described her work as mostly doing reports about local issues, opening the mail, meeting with residents and helping to prepare speeches for local events. She said working that way allowed her to have a flexible schedule and raise their five children in the Fillons’ countryside manor. She said her husband was the one who decided the details of her contracts.
Prosecutors pointed at the lack of actual evidence of her work, including the absence of declarations for any paid vacations or maternity leave, as her wages reached up to nine times France’s minimum salary.
Prosecutor Aurelien Letocart argued that “meeting with voters, getting the children from school, going shopping or reading mail isn’t intended to be paid work.”  
Letocart said Fillon “had a deep feeling of impunity, the certainty that his status would dissuade anyone from suing him … This gets cynical when that attitude comes from a man who made probity his trademark.”
Francois Fillon insisted his wife’s job was real and said that, according to the separation of powers, the justice system can’t interfere with how a lawmaker organizes work at his office.  
In addition, charges also cover a contract that allowed Penelope Fillon to earn 135.000 euros in 2012-2013 as a consultant for a literary magazine owned by a friend of her husband — also an alleged fake job. The magazine owner, Marc de Lacharriere, already pleaded guilty and was given a suspended eight-month prison sentence and fined 375,000 euros in 2018.
The National Assembly, which joined the proceedings as a civil plaintiff, has requested a total penalty of 1.081 million euros that correspond to the salaries and payroll charges that were paid.
Fillon, once the youngest lawmaker at the National Assembly at the age of 27, served as prime minister under President Nicolas Sarkozy from 2007 to 2012. He was also a minister under two previous presidents, Francois Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac.
He left French politics in 2017 and now works for an asset management company.
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