Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moïse. The assassination is likely to plunge the Caribbean nation into further turmoil.Photograph: Andrés Martínez Casares/Reuters
“The president of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, has been assassinated in his home by a group of armed men who also seriously injured his wife, according to a statement and comments made by the country’s interim prime minister.
Speaking on a local radio station, Claude Joseph confirmed Moïse, 53, had been killed, saying the attack was carried out by an ‘armed commando group’ that included foreigners.
According to some reports and video published in the Miami Herald and elsewhere, Moïse’s killers had claimed to be members of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) as they entered his guarded residence.
In videos circulating on social media, a man with an American accent is heard saying in English over a megaphone: ‘DEA operation. Everybody stand down. DEA operation. Everybody back up, stand down.’” Read more at The Guardian
“North America endured the hottest June on record last month, according to satellite data that shows temperature peaks lasting longer as well as rising higher.
The heat dome above western Canada and the north-west United States generated headlines around the world as daily temperature records were shattered across British Columbia, Washington and Portland.
The new data reveals this was part of a broader trend that built up over several weeks and a far wider area, which is underpinned by human-driven climate disruption.
The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service also revealed that June temperatures in North America were 1.2C higher than the average from 1991 to 2020, which is more than 2C above pre-industrial levels.
This is the 12th consecutive year of above-average June temperatures in the region, and the greatest increase recorded until now.” Read more at The Guardian
“Eric Adams, a former police captain, has won the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City after appealing to the political center and promising to strike the right balance between fighting crime and ending racial injustice in policing.
Adams would be the city’s second Black mayor if elected. He triumphed over a large field in New York’s first major race to use ranked-choice voting.
As of Tuesday evening, Adams had a lead of one point over his closest rival, Kathryn Garcia, according to the latest count of ballots. The Associated Press declared Adams the winner of the race shortly after a new round of vote totals was released.
‘I grew up poor in Brooklyn and Queens. I wore a bulletproof vest to keep my neighbors safe. I served my community as a state senator and Brooklyn borough president,’ Adams said in a statement shared on Twitter. ‘And I’m honored to be the Democratic nominee to be the mayor of the city I’ve always called home.’
Tuesday’s updated vote count included some 125,000 absentee ballots. In-person and early votes were previously published on 29 June, when Adams had the lead.
The winner of the Democratic primary is likely to win the mayoral election proper in November, given the left-leaning politics of the city and an unheralded Republican opponent. Curtis Sliwa, a talk radio host and founder of the Guardian Angels volunteer crime prevention group, won the Republican primary.
Adams’s closest vanquished rivals included Garcia, the former city sanitation commissioner who campaigned as a technocrat and proven problem-solver, and the former city hall legal adviser Maya Wiley, who had progressive support including an endorsement from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Andrew Yang, the 2020 presidential candidate known for his proposed universal basic income, was an early favorite but faded in the race.” Read more at The Guardian
“Elsa weakened from a hurricane to a tropical storm Wednesday as it threatened Florida's northern Gulf Coast after raking past the Tampa Bay region with gusty winds and heavy rain. Gov. Ron DeSantis said forecasts called for the storm to come ashore sometime between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. A hurricane warning was in effect for a long stretch of coastline, from Egmont Key at the mouth of Tampa Bay to the Steinhatchee River. ‘We ask that you please take it seriously,’ DeSantis told reporters Tuesday. ‘This is not a time to joyride because we do have hazardous conditions out there.’ There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries in the Tampa Bay area.” Read more at USA Today
“The Delta variant now makes up more than half of US coronavirus cases, the CDC says. It's perhaps no coincidence that areas experiencing spikes also have low vaccination rates. Among them is southwest Missouri, where a Covid-19 surge team is deploying to deal with hospital overflow. While health experts maintain that vaccines available now offer good protection from newer variants, an analysis by the Israeli government says the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine appears to be less effective against the Delta variant than other strains. Other scientists and medical authorities say it's too soon to draw conclusions from that study. The CDC hasn't changed its mask guidance, even as the Delta variant spread to all 50 states. Got Covid-19 questions? We're answering them here.” Read more at CNN
“Nikole Hannah-Jones, the Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Timesjournalist who spearheaded the paper’s “1619 Project,” said on Tuesday that she would not accept a tenure offer from the University of North Carolina, after the school initially refused to offer her a tenure-track position. Hannah-Jones will instead join Howard University as the Knight Chair in race and journalism. She will also found a new center for journalism and democracy. (Howard also announced that Ta-Nahisi Coates will be joining its faculty.)
In April, UNC offered Hannah-Jones a five-year teaching position at the university’s Hussman School of Journalism. Yet the board of trustees did not offer her tenure, as it had with previous such appointees. Conservative board members, including the school’s namesake, Walter Hussman, were critical of Hannah-Jones’s stewardship of the “1619 Project,” which attempted to reframe America’s founding through the lens of slavery and white supremacy. The decision sparked widespread backlash, including from journalists and UNC faculty, and Hannah-Jones threatened to file a discrimination lawsuit.” Read more at NY Mag
“The death toll in the Florida condo building collapse rose to 36 and 109 people remain unaccounted for as the rescue effort faces challenges from Elsa.” Read more at USA Today
“Sha'Carri Richardson will miss the Tokyo Olympics after USA Track & Field revealed that she has not been selected as a member of the 4x100 relay team.” Read more at USA Today
“Americans responded to the stress of the pandemic by drinking more — in some cases, a lot more, Axios Future author Bryan Walsh writes.
Americans started drinking more as soon as the pandemic began in full last year: Nielsen data showed a 54% increase in national alcohol sales year-on-year in the week ending on March 21, 2020.
One survey, conducted in February by The Harris Poll for the American Psychological Association, found nearly one in four Americans reported drinking more to combat pandemic-related stress.
Context: After more than a decade of declining alcohol consumption, per-capita alcohol consumption increased by 8% between 1999 and 2017.” Read more at Axios
“On the six-month anniversary of the Capitol invasion, the FBI released 11 new videos of suspects using, as MSNBC's Rachel Maddow put it, ‘stop motion, slow motion, spot shadowing’ to try to isolate the faces.
And lots of the video was posted by the rioters themselves.
At least 49 defendants, out of 500+ who have been arrested, are accused of trying to erase incriminating photos, videos and texts from phones or social media, AP found in a review of court records.
Investigators have retrieved the digital content by requesting it from social media companies, even after accounts are shut down.” Read more at Axios
“The Pentagon scrapped a $10 billion cloud-computing contract awarded in 2019 to Microsoft Corp. after several years of wrangling between the government and some of the biggest U.S. tech companies over the deal, indicating it plans to divide the work between Microsoft and rival Amazon.com Inc. instead.” Read more at Time
Former President Donald Trump walks on stage during a rally at the Sarasota Fairgrounds Saturday, July 3, 2021, in Sarasota, Fla. AP Photo/Jason Behnken
“WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump is expected to announce a class-action lawsuit Wednesday against three of the country's biggest tech companies: Facebook, Twitter and Google.
Trump will serve as the lead plaintiff in the suit, claiming he has been wrongfully censored by the companies, according to a person familiar with the action. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to share details ahead of the announcement.
Trump was suspended from Twitter and Facebook after his followers stormed the Capitol building on Jan. 6, with the companies citing concerns that he would incite further violence. Currently, he can no longer post on either platform.
Nonetheless, Trump has continued to spread lies about the 2020 election, baselessly claiming that he won, even though state and local election officials, his own attorney general and numerous judges, including some he appointed, have said there is no evidence of the mass voter fraud he alleges.
Trump is set to make the announcement at an event at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf course Wednesday morning.” Read more at Richmond Times-Dispatch
“On a visit to Europe to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of the first world war, Donald Trump insisted to his then chief of staff, John Kelly: ‘Well, Hitler did a lot of good things.’
The remark from the former US president on the 2018 trip, which reportedly ‘stunned’ Kelly, a retired US Marine Corps general, is reported in a new book by Michael Bender of the Wall Street Journal.
Frankly, We Did Win This Election has been widely trailed ahead of publication next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.
Bender reports that Trump made the remark during an impromptu history lesson in which Kelly ‘reminded the president which countries were on which side during the conflict’ and ‘connected the dots from the first world war to the second world war and all of Hitler’s atrocities.’
Bender is one of a number of authors to have interviewed Trump since he was ejected from power.
He reports that Trump denied making the remark about Hitler.
But Bender says unnamed sources reported that Kelly ‘told the president that he was wrong, but Trump was undeterred,’ emphasizing German economic recovery under Hitler during the 1930s.” Read more at The Guardian
“Ever Given container ship to finally set sail. The ship that blocked the Suez Canal for almost a week earlier this year is due to sail after its owners reached a multimillion-dollar compensation deal with Egyptian authorities for its release, ending a monthslong saga.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“YouTube’s search algorithm directs viewers to false and sexualized videos, study finds. Despite instituting many changes to limit the problematic videos it recommends to viewers, a new study suggests the platform's repairs have a way to go. Mozilla Foundation found that more than 70% of videos flagged as objectionable by its study participants were recommended by YouTube.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“A Wall Street Journal study of thousands of prices at hundreds of hospitals across the U.S. found that those without healthcare coverage get charged higher prices for the same care as those with insurance. About 21% of the hospitals included in the analysis charged uninsured patients the highest rates for the majority of services. The differences in the prices charged to insurers versus out-of-pocket payers were confidential until a new federal law took effect this year. The newly available data highlights how the approximately 29 million uninsured Americans can be saddled with large amounts of debt that they might struggle to pay off for years. Hospitals usually have a sticker price that insurance companies are able to negotiate on because of the volume of patients they bring in, while cash-payers are often charged full price. Even with available financial aid services at hospitals, patients can be left with unmanageable bills because they are ineligible for aid or don't know about assistance. When South Dakota resident Raul Macias suffered a potentially life-threatening tear in the lining of his largest artery, he was charged three times the lowest rate secured by insurance companies for an abdominal and pelvic scan. Overall, his bills came to nearly $60,000. ‘It’s really criminal, the mess that our current system is in,’ said Mary Daniel, chief executive of ClaimMedic, which helps patients negotiate payment with hospitals. ‘It is a deliberate attempt for these hospitals to gouge the uninsured.’” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Montana’s new restrictions on ballot collection and registration will probably make voting harder for Native Americans.” Read more at New York Times
“Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York declared surging gun violence a statewide emergency and allocated $76 million to create jobs for at-risk youth.” Read more at New York Times
“Lives Lived: The directorRichard Donner made Christopher Reeve’s Superman fly, Mel Gibson’s deranged detective lethal and the young stars of ‘The Goonies’ adorable. Donner died at 91.” Read more at New York Times
“Rachel Nichols will not cover the N.B.A. finals on ABC. Nichols, who is white, has made disparaging comments about a Black colleague. (Here’s the background.)” Read more at New York Times
“Italy beat Spain to reach the final of the Euro 2020 soccer tournament. England plays Denmark today for the other spot.” Read more at New York Times
“LOS ANGELES (AP) — Britney Spears’ court-appointed attorney on Tuesday filed documents to resign from her conservatorship, the latest of several such moves that have come in the fallout from the pop singer’s comments in court decrying the legal arrangement that controls her money and affairs.
Samuel Ingham III filed documents in Los Angeles Superior Court requesting that the court appoint Spears a new attorney, and saying his resignation would take effect as soon as that happened.
During her June 23 speech in court, in which she condemned the conservatorship and asked Judge Brenda Penny to end it, Spears was critical of Ingham, and said she wished the court would allow her to hire a lawyer of her choice.” Read more at AP News
“Lebanon is in the throes of an economic crisis that is worsening by the day. Residents face long lines at gas stations, power outages of up to 22 hours and food and medical shortages. The situation has already given way to violence, and Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister predicts the country is just days away from a "social explosion." As the state appeals to outside forces for help, officials at institutions like the World Bank and European Union say the catastrophe could have been avoided and point the finger at Lebanon's leaders for not taking steps that could have mitigated the financial decline.” Read more at CNN
“AMSTERDAM (AP) — One of the Netherlands’ best known crime reporters was shot Tuesday evening in a brazen attack in downtown Amsterdam and was fighting for his life in a hospital, the Dutch capital’s mayor said.
Peter R. de Vries, who is widely lauded for fearless reporting on the Dutch underworld, was shot after making one of his regular appearances on a current affairs television show. It was an unusually brutal attack on a journalist in the Netherlands.” Read more at AP News
“Russian hackers are accused of breaching a contractor for the Republican National Committee last week, around the same time that Russian cybercriminals launched the single largest global ransomware attack on record, incidents that are testing the red lines set by President Biden during his high-stakes summit with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia last month.
The R.N.C. said in a statement on Tuesday that one of its technology providers, Synnex, had been hacked. While the extent of the attempted breach remained unclear, the committee said none of its data had been accessed.
Early indications were that the culprit was Russia’s S.V.R. intelligence agency, according to investigators in the case. The S.V.R. is the group that initially hacked the Democratic National Committee six years ago and more recently conducted the SolarWinds attack that penetrated more than a half-dozen government agencies and many of the largest U.S. corporations.
The R.N.C. attack was the second of apparent Russian origin to become public in the last few days, and it was unclear late Tuesday whether the two were related. On Sunday, a Russian-based cybercriminal organization known as REvil claimed responsibility for a cyberattack over the long holiday weekend that has spread to 800 to 1,500 businesses around the world. It was one of the largest attacks in history in which hackers shut down systems until a ransom is paid, security researchers said.” Read more at New York Times
“A large-scale trial of a four-day workweek in Iceland proved an ‘overwhelming success’ according to the authors of a new report which analyzed worker productivity and wellbeing over a 2017-2019 trial period. The study, which involved the participation of 2,500 people—or 1 percent of Iceland’s working population—found that productivity largely remained the same or improved across participating industries while workers were able to exercise more, reduce stress, take care of errands, and spend more time with their families. Some workplaces even found an increase in applicants when a four-day workweek was mentioned in job advertisements.
The results of the trial have had concrete effects on Iceland’s working culture: 86 percent of workers now work shorter hours or have the right to shorten their hours, according to the study authors.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) has repeatedly denied being a climate-crisis denier—so he should have probably thought twice before making this ridiculous comment on camera. CNN’s KFile has uncovered video of the Wisconsin Republican telling a laughing audience that he believes the climate crisis is ‘bullshit.’ Johnson can be heard saying: ‘I don’t know about you guys, but I think climate change is, as Lord Monckton said, bullshit.’ The tape shows him mouthing the expletive rather than saying it out loud. Lord Monckton is a right-wing British aristocrat known for climate denialism and homophobia. In a statement, Johnson said: ‘My statements are consistent. I am not a climate-change denier, but I also am not a climate-change alarmist. Climate is not static. It has always changed and always will change.’ Johnson is wrong—there is an overwhelming scientific consensus that the climate crisis is manmade.” Read more at CNN
“Scarlett Johansson and her husband, Colin Jost, are expecting a baby, Page Six reports. The Avengers actor is reportedly due soon and has attempted to stay out of the public eye in recent months despite playing the titular character in a summer blockbuster. Johansson, 36, stars in Black Widow, a spinoff in the Avengers universe premiering this weekend, but she has skipped in-person promo events and participated in interviews primarily via Zoom. The child will be the first for Jost, 39, and the second for Johansson. She has a 6-year-old daughter, Rose, with ex-husband Romain Dauriac.” Read more at Page Six
“Princess Latifa was fleeing her father, the authoritarian ruler of Dubai, when her escape was thwarted. How she was found remained a mystery. Until now. A USA TODAY investigation finds the FBI played a key role.” Read more at USA Today