Ridge Vanderhoff, 4, his sister Louise, 2, and their father, Michael, attended a Fourth of July parade in Cumming, Ga., on Saturday.Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
Americans are returning to their rituals for July 4 as Covid-19 cases hold steady
“New cases are at 12,000 a day, the lowest since testing became widely available. The average of fewer than 300 daily deaths is a decline of 23 percent over the past two weeks. Americans are riding a wave of optimism: Travel is expected to be up 40 percent over last year. The number of airline passengers is expected to be up 164 percent.
For parents whose children are too young to be vaccinated, the holiday is trickier. Here’s some perspective, and some basic advice.
President Biden has invited 1,000 military personnel and essential workers to an Independence Day bash on the South Lawn of the White House. But public health experts fear the gathering will send the wrong message as wide swaths of the population remain vulnerable.
In the bigger picture, some Americans are considering, or reconsidering, what the flag means to them.” Read more at New York Times
The authorities announced plans on Saturday to demolish the remainder of Champlain Towers South before Tropical Storm Elsa’s arrival.Angel Valentin for The New York Times
Florida officials are rushing to demolish what remains of Champlain Towers South.
“Worried that Tropical Storm Elsa could topple the partially collapsed structure, Mayor Charles Burkett of Surfside said demolition could begin as early as Sunday. The demolition would cause ‘the most minimal interruption’ of search and rescue work, officials said.
In the wake of the collapse, engineers have been struck by a possible flaw in the building’s construction: Critical places near its base appeared to have less steel reinforcement than called for in the project’s original design drawings.
The bodies of six more victims were found on Friday, bringing the total to 24. As many as 124 people are still unaccounted for. Tumultuous conflict over how the building was run was an open secret in the years leading to its collapse.” Read more at New York Times
An Afghan soldier at Bagram Air Base.Mohammad Ismail/Reuters
U.S. combat troops are out of Afghanistan. But the White House is trying to convince Afghans that the U.S. is not abandoning the country.
“The military will help Afghan forces by teleconference. Armed Air Force drones will hunt terrorists from bases eight hours away. The Biden administration still plans to provide the Afghan government more than $3 billion in security assistance.
In reality, much has changed. The U.S. departure from Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan this past week was marked by little fanfare, and the new tenants are the Afghan security forces. The physical objects left behind are reminders of decades of loss.
Intelligence analysts estimate that Kabul could fall to the Taliban in as little as six months.” Read more at New York Times
The Coop supermarket chain in Sweden was the victim of an cyberattack.Nicklas Andersson/Avanza
Hundreds of businesses around the world were hit by a cyberattack.
“One of Sweden’s largest grocery chains, Coop, had to close at least 800 stores on Saturday. A Swedish railroad and a major pharmacy chain were also hit, according to a cybersecurity researcher. Some of the affected companies were asked for $5 million in ransom.
Security researchers said the attack might have been carried out by REvil, a Russian cybercriminal group that the F.B.I. has said was behind the hacking of JBS, the world’s largest meat processor, in May. The attack targeted a software provider, Kaseya, which provides services to more than 40,000 organizations.
At a congressional hearing in May, the chief executives of Wall Street’s six largest banks said the greatest threat to their companies and the wider financial system was cybersecurity. The Times’s DealBook newsletter examines the risks of such an attack.” Read more at New York Times
Protesters calling for the ouster of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro clash with police in São Paulo.Victor Moriyama for The New York Times
Brazilians are protesting President Jair Bolsonaro over a vaccine scandal.
“The attorney general’s office has opened an investigation into Bolsonaro’s role in a corruption scheme in which health ministry officials solicited bribes from vaccine dealers. The outrage drew tens of thousands of Brazilians to the streets in several cities on Saturday, the third large wave of demonstrations in recent weeks.
The inquiry is likely to pose a major threat to Bolsonaro’s re-election bid next year, and perhaps even his ability to serve out the remainder of his term.
In the U.K., Prime Minister Boris Johnson seems convinced that a high vaccination rate has broken the link between cases and hospitalizations and is gambling on reopening.” Read more at New York Times
Allen Weisselberg, center, at the Manhattan district attorney’s office.Jefferson Siegel for The New York Times
In the case against Donald Trump’s company, there are echoes of his father.
“The details of the charges brought by a grand jury against the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, have a rather low-rent feel that one might associate with a scrappy real-estate operation.
Weisselberg is accused of receiving $1.76 million in tax-free benefits over 15 years, doled out in a strikingly small-bore and incremental way. The alleged scheme resembles an updated version of Fred Trump’s $16,135 boilers, which he bought from himself for his apartment buildings in the 1990s, inflating the bill and skimming off the extra money for his children to avoid gift and inheritance taxes.” Read more at New York Times
“Facing a fraught time, Donald Trump spent a Saturday night rally in Florida denouncing indictments of his company on tax fraud charges, while saying nothing about a looming political rivalry with the state's governor, Ron DeSantis.
The ex-president told supporters in Sarasota that prosecutors in New York City are the latest in a string of investigators who are trying to stop his political movement with probes that have included Russian election interference, two impeachments, and now taxes.
‘Solely because of politics, they want to do things to hurt us,’ Trump said.
Trump also praised various Florida Republicans in the crowd, but one prominent lawmakers was not in attendance: DeSantis, who is monitoring recovery from the collapse of a 12-story condominium building in Surfside, near Miami, that killed at least 24 people and left more than 120 still missing.” Read more at USA Today
“Eleven men were taken into custody on Saturday after a lengthy roadside standoff between police officers in Massachusetts and a group of heavily armed men in tactical gear who claimed to be part of a group called Rise of the Moors.
Dozens of police officers from Massachusetts and New Hampshire responded to the standoff, which shut down part of a highway for several hours and prompted the authorities to order people in surrounding communities to shelter in place.
The men, who appeared to be livestreaming the standoff on YouTube, eventually surrendered to the police without any shots being fired, the authorities said. There were no injuries, although three of the men in the group were hospitalized with what the police described as pre-existing conditions that had nothing to do with the standoff.” Read more at New York Times
“Tyson Foods is recalling approximately 8.5 million pounds of frozen, cooked chicken products for possible listeria contamination.
The company and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service announced the recall Saturday night.
The recall includes Tyson branded products and private label products for restaurants, which include Jet’s Pizza, Casey’s General Store, Marco’s Pizza and Little Caesars.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also issued a food safety alert saying the products – which were shipped nationwide to retailers and institutions including hospitals, nursing facilities, restaurants and schools – may be linked to a listeria outbreak that has caused three illnesses and one death.” Read more at USA Today
“A stunning investigation published Saturday by The New Yorker provides new details about Britney Spears’ fight to free herself from her restrictive conservatorship.
The report by Ronan Farrow and Jia Tolentino alleges the pop star called 911 to report herself a victim of conservatorship abuse, a day before Spears’ shocking June 23 court testimony during which she described herself as ‘traumatized’ and ‘depressed.’
According to The New Yorker, members of Spears’ team ‘began texting one another frantically’ after the call. ‘They were worried about what Spears might say the next day, and they discussed how to prepare in the event that she went rogue.’
Emergency calls are usually public record in California, but not in Spears’ case because the call is part of an ongoing investigation, Farrow and Tolentino wrote.
The investigation describes a conservatorship that was granted quickly and gone unchallenged, as well as a fraught relationship between Spears and her father, Jamie Spears, who controls her finances….
Among the identified sources are family, friends and ex-employees, including Spears’ former manager Sam Lutfi (a five-year restraining order was filed against him in 2019 on Spears’ behalf by lawyers for her conservatorship), her mother Lynne Spears and her former hairstylist Kim Vo.
Among the report’s numerous allegations is that Spears’ conservatorship was intended to be temporary.
Lynne Spears thought the conservatorship would last just a few months and didn’t want to be attached to it because it might damage her relationship with her daughter, according to Jacqueline Butcher, a former family friend….
The New Yorker also alleges that Spears is living on a limited allowance, while paying the costs of her conservatorship.
According to Farrow and Tolentino, the singer pays Ingham, her court-appointed lawyer, $520,000 per year. By comparison, they say, Spears’ 2019 living expenses came to just under $450,000.
Court documents show that Jamie Spears’ lawyers billed nearly $900,000 for four months of work from October 2020 to February 2021. Included are hundreds of hours of responding to media requests at a rate of $500 to $900 per hour.” Read more at USA Today
Luo Huazhong taking a break in Jiande, China.Qilai Shen for The New York Times
Chinese millennials are chilling.Beijing isn’t happy.
“Five years ago, Luo Huazhong quit his job in a factory, biked 1,300 miles to Tibet and started working odd jobs. He called his new lifestyle ‘lying flat,’ or tangping in Mandarin. His blog post about it, ‘Lying Flat Is Justice,’ went viral and became a broader statement about Chinese society for millennials who are defying the country’s prosperity narrative by refusing to participate in it: forgoing marriage, children, jobs, houses and cars.
The ruling Communist Party has targeted the idea as a threat to stability. The authorities barred posts on a tangping forum with more than 200,000 members and required e-commerce platforms to stop selling clothes, phone cases and other merchandise branded with ‘tangping.’'“ Read more at New York Times
Tyler Johnson scoring for the Tampa Bay Lightning during Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final on Friday.Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images
The Tampa Bay Lightning are one game away from a sweep — and a second straight N.H.L. championship.
“The most scrutinized position in sports might be the starting goaltender in Montreal: Jacques Plante, Ken Dryden, Patrick Roy and now Carey Price. He waited 14 years for his first finals appearance, but in a possible passing of the torch, he has been outplayed by his Lightning counterpart, Andrei Vasilevskiy. Game 4 is Monday night.
With a week left at Wimbledon, all eyes are on the top-seeded woman, Ashleigh Barty. She’s the one in the scalloped hemline — a tribute to Evonne Goolagong Cawley, who won Wimbledon 50 years ago and, like Barty, is of Indigenous Australian ancestry. In the tournament’s final week, enjoy the squash shots: Roger Federer’s gift to tennis, spectacular to watch and fun to hit.” Read more at New York Times
Carnival Cruise Line, Carnival Corp.'s flagship line, is once again launching ships with paying passengers from U.S. ports.
“Carnival Vista departed the Port of Galveston in Texas Saturday afternoon for a weeklong cruise with stops in Mahogany Bay, Honduras; Cozumel, Mexico; and Belize City, Belize. It’s the first ship from the cruise line to sail from a U.S. port in more than 15 months.” Read more at USA Today