July, 2021 | últimas notícias

First Thing: Human rights activists, dissidents and journalists targeted by Pegasus spyware – The Guardian

Good morning.

Human rights lawyers, activists and dissidents across the globe were selected as possible candidates for invasive surveillance via their phones, leaked phone data suggests.

The Guardian’s Pegasus project reveals that their mobile phone numbers appeared in leaked records, indicating they were selected prior to possible surveillance targeting by governmental clients of the Israeli company NSO Group, which developed the Pegasus spyware.

NSO has repeatedly insisted that Pegasus is meant to be used only to spy on terrorists and serious criminals. The tool can extract messages, photos and emails, record calls and secretly activate microphones.

Loujain al-Hathloul, the most prominent women’s rights activist in Saudi Arabia, was one of those selected for possible targeting, just weeks before her 2018 abduction in the United Arab Emirates and forced return to Saudi Arabia, where she was imprisoned for three years and allegedly tortured. It is believed Hathloul was selected by the UAE, a known client of NSO and close ally of Saudi Arabia.
Check out this handy explainer about Pegasus, and what this spyware is capable of.

NSO has claimed it will cut off clients if they misuse Pegasus. In a response to the consortium, it denied the leaked records were evidence of targeting with Pegasus and said it “will continue to investigate all credible claims of misuse and take appropriate action based on the result of these investigations”.

A ‘chilling’ rightwing backlash to Biden takes root in Republican states

US president Joe Biden delivers remarks in a speech at National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, last week. Photograph: Leah Millis/Reuters

Joe Biden may have promised to use his presidency to “restore the soul of America” and to unite the nation, defuse “anger, resentment and hatred” and lead Americans back to a world where they treated “each other with dignity and respect”.

But six months on, Biden’s assurances are at risk of appearing overly romantic. About 1,400 miles west from the White House, in Dallas, Texas, people who had been hoping for change are witnessing an explosion of regressive, extreme rightwing laws pushed through by the state’s Republicans, Ed Pilkington writes.

Of particular concern is the Republican bill to make it even more difficult to vote – in a state that already makes it harder to vote than any other in the country.
Another new law expected to come into effect in September effectively tries to turn ordinary citizens into anti-abortion bounty hunters, offering a $10,000 reward to anyone who successfully sues a fellow Texan for helping a woman seek an abortion beyond six weeks of pregnancy.

Huge Oregon blaze grows as wildfires burn across western US

The Bootleg fire burns in south-east Oregon. The wildfire is the largest among many now burning in the west. Photograph: National Wildfire Coordinating G/ZUMA Wire/REX/Shutterstock

The Bootleg Fire, the largest wildfire in the US, torched more dry forest landscape in Oregon on Sunday, one of at least 70 major blazes burning across the west and nearby states.

The wildfire, which is raging just north of the California border, grew to more than 476 sq miles (1,210 sq km), an area about the size of Los Angeles.

Erratic winds fed the Bootleg Fire, creating dangerous conditions for firefighters and hampering their efforts.
Two thousand residents have been evacuated from a largely rural area of lakes and wildlife refuges.
The blaze, which is 22% contained, has burned at least 67 homes and 100 outbuildings while threatening thousands more.

In other news …

File photo from December 2016 of Katie Hopkins, who has been axed from the upcoming season of Australia’s Big Brother VIP after reportedly admitting to deliberately disobeying strict hotel quarantine rules. Photograph: Philip Toscano/PA

The British far-right commentator Katie Hopkins is facing imminent deportation from Australia, after her visa was cancelled because she boasted about breaching hotel quarantine rules. Hopkins, 46, broadcast a live video from what she claimed was a Sydney hotel room on Saturday morning, describing Covid-19 lockdowns as “the greatest hoax in human history”.
A US father and son have been imprisoned in Tokyo for helping the former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn flee to Lebanon. A Tokyo court has handed down the first sentences related to Ghosn’s arrest and escape from Japan, ruling that the US army special forces veteran Michael Taylor will be jailed for two years and his son, Peter, for one year and eight months.
The billionaire space race could be one giant leap for pollution, as Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson and co are hoping to vastly expand the number of people travelling to space.
Spectators cheered as a stone statue of a Confederate general was hoisted by a crane and removed from a pedestal where it stood for 99 years in front of a city hall in south Louisiana on Saturday.

Stat of the day: almost 80% of dozens of everyday grocery items are supplied by just a handful of companies

A joint investigation by the Guardian and Food and Water Watch shows that a handful of mega firms dominate every link of the food supply chain: from seeds and fertilizers to slaughterhouses and supermarkets to cereals and beers, US consumers are almost entirely at the mercy of a few huge companies when buying food.

Don’t miss: Wisconsin workers fight factory move to Mexico

Workers at Hufcor, a family-owned company founded in Janesville, Wisconsin, 120 years ago, are fighting the closure of the plant and the moving of operations to Monterrey, Mexico, which is wiping out the jobs of 166 workers. Their opponent? The private-equity firm OpenGate Capital, which acquired the company four years ago and which, according to the Wisconsin senator Tammy Baldwin, “has a history of shutting down businesses and giving workers pink slips in Wisconsin”.

Climate Check

Covering the climate crisis is one of the most important things we do at the Guardian. So today we’re introducing Climate Check, a new First Thing section to help you stay on top of the environmental stories that matter the most. Today, we thought we’d bring to your attention that the American Petroleum Institute, a powerful US lobby group, receives millions from oil companies to help big oil block climate action. My colleague Chris McGreal reports.

Last Thing: Is it wrong to steal someone’s tattoo?

Adele Exarchopoulos tattoo detail at the ‘OSS 117: From Africa with Love’ premiere and Closing Ceremony, at the 74th Cannes Film Festival in France on Saturday. Photograph: David Fisher/REX/Shutterstock

Once a symbol of individualism, many tattoos are now far from unique. What happens when you walk into a tattoo parlour and come out with someone else’s inky ornament on your arm after a quick Google of “cool tattoos men”? James Shackell knows.

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Source Article from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/19/first-thing-human-rights-activists-dissidents-and-journalists-targeted-by-pegasus-spyware

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Biden Administration Transfers Its First Detainee From Guantánamo Bay – The New York Times

Details of such arrangements are not public, but in the Obama years they typically included not letting the former detainee travel abroad for several years and a commitment to monitor him and to share information with the American government about him.

U.S. forces delivered Mr. Nasser to Moroccan government custody early Monday. Mr. Nasser’s family members in Casablanca have pledged to support him by finding him work in his brother’s swimming pool cleaning business, said his lawyer, Thomas Anthony Durkin of Chicago.

Mr. Durkin, who has represented Mr. Nasser for more than a decade, noted that Mr. Nasser was on the verge of release in early 2017 when the Trump administration halted all transfers and closed the office at the State Department that negotiated security arrangements for such deals.

Only one detainee left the prison during the Trump years, and under very different circumstances: A confessed Qaeda terrorist was repatriated to Saudi Arabia to serve out a prison sentence imposed by a U.S. military commission, in accordance with an earlier plea agreement.

In a statement, Mr. Durkin called the last four years of Mr. Nasser’s 19-year detention “collateral damage of the Trump administration’s and zealous Republican war-on-terror hawks’ raw politics,” adding, “If this were a wrongful conviction case in Cook County, it would be worth $20 million.”

“We applaud the Biden administration for causing no further harm,” he said.

The Biden administration did not renegotiate the Obama-era agreement to repatriate Mr. Nasser, the senior official said, but the State Department did need “to reaffirm” the terms of the transfer agreement with Morocco. They were not disclosed.

A public radio personality with a similar name, Latif Nasser, now of the public radio program “Radiolab,” devoted a six-part audio series to questions about whether his near-namesake’s activities, including a stint at a Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, merited two decades of U.S. military detention.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/19/us/politics/guantanamo-bay-detainee-released.html

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Dangerous conditions complicate wildfire fight in western US – Associated Press

BLY, Ore. (AP) — Erratic winds and dry lightning added to the dangers for crews battling the nation’s largest wildfire on Monday in parched Oregon forests, just one of dozens burning across several Western states.

The destructive Bootleg Fire, one of the largest in modern Oregon history, has already burned more than 476 square miles (1,210 square kilometers), an area about the size of Los Angeles. The blaze just north of the California state line was 25% contained.

Meteorologists predicted critically dangerous fire weather through at least Monday with lightning possible in both California and southern Oregon.

“With the very dry fuels, any thunderstorm has the potential to ignite new fire starts,” the National Weather Service in Sacramento, California, said on Twitter.

Thousands have been ordered to evacuate, including some 2,000 people who live in rugged terrain among lakes and wildlife refuges near the fire, which has burned at least 67 homes and 100 outbuildings while threatening many more.

Climate change has made the West much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive. Firefighters said these conditions in July are more typical of late summer or fall.

Pyrocumulus clouds — literally translated as “fire clouds” — complicated containment efforts Sunday for the Dixie Fire in northern California, where flames spread in remote areas with steep terrain crews can’t easily reach, officials said. New evacuation orders were issued in rural communities near the Feather River Canyon.

The Dixie Fire remained 15% contained and covered 29 square miles (74 square kilometers). The fire is northeast of the town of Paradise, California, and survivors of that horrific fire that killed 85 people watched warily as the blaze burned.

A growing wildfire south of Lake Tahoe jumped a highway, prompting more evacuation orders, the closure of the Pacific Crest Trail and the cancellation of an extreme bike ride through the Sierra Nevada.

The Tamarack Fire, which was sparked by lightning on July 4, had charred about 28.5 square miles (74 square kilometers) of dry brush and timber as of Sunday night. The blaze was threatening Markleeville, a small town close to the California-Nevada state line. It has destroyed at least two structures, authorities said.

A notice posted Saturday on the 103-mile (165-kilometer) Death Ride’s website said several communities in the area had been evacuated and ordered all bike riders to clear the area. The fire left thousands of bikers and spectators stranded in the small town and racing to get out.

Kelli Pennington and her family were camping near the town Friday so her husband could participate in his ninth ride when they were told to leave. They had been watching smoke develop over the course of the day, but were caught off guard by the fire’s quick spread.

“It happened so fast,” Pennington said. “We left our tents, hammock and some foods, but we got most of our things, shoved our two kids in the car and left.”

About 800 fire personnel were assigned to battle the flames by Sunday night, “focusing on preserving life and property with point protection of structures and putting in containment lines where possible,” the U.S. Forest Service said.

A fire in the mountains of northeast Oregon grew to more than 18 square miles (48 square kilometers) by Sunday. The Elbow Creek Fire that started Thursday has prompted evacuations in several small, remote communities around the Grande Ronde River about 30 miles (50 kilometers) southeast of Walla Walla, Washington. It was 10% contained.

Natural features of the area act like a funnel for wind, feeding the flames and making them unpredictable, officials said.

Overall, about 70 active large fires and complexes of multiple blazes have burned nearly 1,659 square miles (4,297 square kilometers) in the U.S., the National Interagency Fire Center said. The U.S. Forest Service said at least 16 major fires were burning in the Pacific Northwest alone.

Source Article from https://apnews.com/article/science-fires-environment-and-nature-wildfires-3f102582aa78c2400a95374a2fb07529

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Tucson suspect shoots at EMTs, police and firefighters in spree that leaves one dead, four injured – NBC News

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Statistics show the stark risks of not getting vaccinated against COVID-19 – ABC News

As top health officials warn that COVID-19 has become a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” recent figures from states and cities throughout the United States reveal the extent to which the virus is impacting people who are not fully inoculated.

A stark case in point: During June, every person who died of COVID-19 in Maryland was unvaccinated, according to a spokesperson for the governor’s office. There were 130 people who died of COVID-19 in Maryland in June, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

New COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations were also predominantly among unvaccinated people, the state said, at 95% and 93% respectively.

Other states have reported similar findings while urging people to get vaccinated as the more transmissible delta variant is driving up COVID-19 cases.

In Louisiana, 97% of the state’s COVID-19 cases and deaths since February have been in unvaccinated people, Gov. John Bel Edwards said Friday. Between February and July, unvaccinated people in Louisiana were 20 times more likely to become infected with COVID-19, according to the state health department.

Those figures were reported as state health officials warned Louisiana is now in a “fourth surge” of the virus; as of Friday, the statewide average daily number of cases per 100,000 residents were up 177% over the past 14 days. The number of COVID-19 hospitalizations also doubled during that time, health officials said.

With the delta variant now the most dominant strain in Louisiana, about 46% of adults in the state are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.

“We only have two choices, we are either going to get vaccinated and end the pandemic or we are going to accept death, a lot of it, this surge and another surge and possibly another variant,” infectious disease specialist Dr. Catherine O’Neal said during a state COVID-19 press briefing Friday.

In Alabama, over 96% of COVID-19 deaths since April 1 were in unvaccinated people, the state health department said on July 13, for 509 deaths out of 529 total. Over 42% of adults in the state are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.

In Los Angeles County, nearly every COVID-19 case, hospitalization and death is in unvaccinated people, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health reported on July 12. Of the 1,059 new cases reported that day, nearly 87% were in people under the age of 50.

“The COVID-19 vaccines are the most effective and important tool to reduce COVID-19 transmission and the spread of variants like the highly transmissible delta variant,” Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said in a statement.

Due to a “rapid rise” in COVID-19 cases in the county, from 210 reported on June 15 to 1,537 two months later — local officials reinstated a mandatory indoor mask mandate, regardless of vaccination status, over the weekend. Over 60% of county residents ages 16 and up are fully vaccinated.

New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Dave Chokshi said the vaccines are “astonishingly effective” while sharing that over 98% of COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths in the city between Jan. 1 and June 15 were in people who were not fully vaccinated. That included 8,069 deaths in people who were not fully vaccinated. Over 64% of NYC adults are fully vaccinated.

The national picture is unclear, through in mid-June, former White House COVID-19 adviser Andy Slavitt said in an interview with The Washington Post that “98, 99-plus percent of people that are being hospitalized and dying with COVID have not been vaccinated.”

As parts of the country with low vaccination rates are seeing outbreaks of COVID-19, “there is a clear message that is coming through,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a press briefing Friday. “This is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated.”

“Communities that are fully vaccinated are generally faring well,” she added.

Over 56% of those ages 12 and up in the U.S. are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.

Clinical trials showed that the COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective at preventing serious disease and death. Breakthrough cases — when a fully vaccinated person becomes infected with COVID-19 — are rare after full vaccination; a recent CDC report found that they may occur in just 0.01% of all fully vaccinated people.

“The message, loud and clear, that we need to reiterate is that these vaccines continue to [provide] strong protection against SARS-CoV-2, including the delta variant,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said during Friday’s White House briefing, calling the delta variant “formidable.” “It’s so important for yourself, your family and your community to get vaccinated.”

Source Article from https://abcnews.go.com/Health/statistics-show-risks-vaccinated-covid-19/story?id=78845627

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Washington Post: Investigation finds Israeli-designed spyware was used to hack journalists and activists around the world – CNN

Washington (CNN)Thirty-seven smartphones owned by journalists, human rights activists, business executives and two women connected to the slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi were targeted by “military-grade spyware” licensed by an Israeli company to governments, according to an investigation by a consortium of media organizations, including The Washington Post, published Sunday.

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/18/politics/israeli-spyware-phone-list-hack-investigation/index.html

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Israeli spyware used to target phones of journalists and activists, investigation finds – CNBC

Private Israeli spy software was used to hack dozens of smartphones that belonged to reporters, human rights activists, business executives and the fiancee of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to a sweeping investigation by the Washington Post and 16 other news organizations.

The military-grade spyware was reportedly licensed by the Israeli spyware firm NSO Group. The investigation discovered that the hacked phones were on a list of more than 50,000 numbers based in countries known to surveil people.

The list of numbers were shared with the Post and other media organizations by Paris-based journalism nonprofit Hidden Stories and human rights group Amnesty International.

NSO Group denied the findings of the report in several statements, arguing that investigation includes “uncorroborated theories” based on “misleading interpretation of leaked data from accessible and overt basic information.”

NSO Group also said it would continue to investigate all credible claims of misuse and take appropriate action.

NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware is licensed to governments around the world and can hack a mobile phone’s data and activate the microphone, according to the report. NSO said the spyware is only used to surveil terrorists and other criminals.

Read the full report here.

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/18/israeli-spyware-used-to-target-phones-of-journalists-and-activists-investigation-finds.html

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More evacuations ordered after California wildfire jumps highway | TheHill – The Hill

A fire in the Lake Tahoe, Calif., area jumped a highway and forced additional evacuations and the cancellation of an intensive bike race, The Associated Press reported.

The Tamarack Fire, just south of the Lake Tahoe, was zero percent contained as of Sunday afternoon, according to the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest. Officials from the national forest said that 517 personnel were working to contain the fire.

The fire is now covering 18,000 acres. It’s just the latest fire to devastate the West in what is increasingly being seen as a year-long issue linked to the changing climate.

The wildfire has grown steadily since lighting sparked it on July 4, leading officials to also close a portion of the Pacific Crest Trail between California State Route 88 and California State Route 4 on Sunday.

Officials also noted that thunderstorms that were predicted for Sunday afternoon could cause “erratic winds” near the wildfire.

“Forced by gusty winds, critically dry fuels and low relative humidity, the Tamarack Fire exhibited rapid rates of spread and an increase in fire behavior throughout the day,” officials noted on Saturday.

According to The Associated Press, the fire was headed toward Alpine County Airport after jumping a highway. Officials say that three structures have already been destroyed by the fire, the wire service reported.

Officials from the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest said that mandatory evacuations were added to Sierra Pines, Upper and Lower Manzanita, Crystal Springs, Alpine Village, Diamond Valley Road and Hung-a-lel-ti.

Additionally, a notice on the 103-mile Death Ride’s website said the intensive bike event had been canceled. Organizers asked riders to leave the area, the AP noted. The event was canceled last year due to COVID-19, and this year would have marked its 40th anniversary.

Source Article from https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/563611-more-evacuations-ordered-after-california-wildfire-jumps-highway

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Angela Merkel calls for climate change action as she surveys deadly German flood damage – NBC News

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Cruz accuses Biden of being ‘in bed’ with Big Tech amid vaccine misinformation controversy – Fox News

Video

Cruz: White House ‘in bed’ with Facebook, Big Tech over COVID misinformation

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz slams the Biden administration for working with tech companies to unconstitutionally censor COVID content

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on Sunday accused the Biden administration of being “in bed with Big Tech,” making the argument that comments made by White House press secretary Jen Psaki last week have only strengthened former President Donald Trump’s lawsuit accusing Facebook and Twitter of censorship.

“I kind of wonder if Jen Psaki is on the payroll of Donald Trump because her press conference strengthened President Trump’s lawsuit against Big Tech,” Cruz said in an appearance on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” “It makes clear that everything we thought about the Biden administration – about their willingness to trample on free speech, to trample on the Constitution, to use government power to silence you, everything we feared they might do, they are doing and worse. And I think that President Trump’s lawsuit got much, much stronger this week.”

As coronavirus cases are on the rise and vaccination rates have slowed in the U.S., the White House launched an effort to crack down on misinformation, starting with a warning from U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy that bogus information about coronavirus is an “urgent threat” to public health.

The surgeon general’s office issued a new report titled, “Confronting Health Misinformation,” that makes recommendations for social media platforms to “impose clear consequences for accounts that repeatedly violate platform policies.”

WHITE HOUSE DOUBLES DOWN ON ITS HARSH CRITICISM OF FACEBOOK FOLLOWING BIDEN’S ‘KILLING’ REMARKS

Psaki doubled down on the administration’s relationship with Facebook on Friday and said it is “making sure social media platforms are aware of the latest narratives,” and even added that if a user is banned from one platform “for providing misinformation” that user should be banned from all others.

“We don’t take anything down. We don’t block anything, Facebook, and any private sector company makes decisions about what information should be on their platform,” Psaki said in defense of the relationship and reported this week that 12 people are to blame for 65% of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms.

Speaking with host Maria Bartiromo, Cruz posed a hypothetical situation, suggesting that what Biden is doing now to pressure Facebook to act would strike a more serious chord if, for example, the White House directed a private paramilitary organization to seize Americans’ guns – then signed a law granting that paramilitary group freedom from any civil liability for its actions.

Cruz explained that First Amendment protection apply to government censorship, but comments from the White House illustrate how private companies with a monopoly could also stamp out free speech.

“The Supreme Court has long recognized a line of cases when government uses a private company as a tool, as an arm to implement a government policy – in this instance, when government explicitly asks a private monopoly ‘censor the following speech we disagree with,’ that that private company can be treated as a state actor,” Cruz said.

President Joe Biden accused the tech companies of “killing people” by allowing misinformation to remain on their platforms, comments which drew a quick rebuke from Facebook.

“The White House is looking for scapegoats for missing their vaccine goals,” a Facebook spokesperson told NBC’s Dylan Byers.

Appearing on Fox News before his speech at Turning Point USA’s Student Action Summit, Cruz further accused both the Democratic Party and Big Tech of being “in bed” with the Chinese Communist Party.

“Big Tech is in bed with the Chinese communists,” Cruz said. “Among the biggest funders of the Democratic Party are the giant corporations. And many of the giant corporations, the Fortune 50 and the Fortune 500, are in bed with the Chinese communists.”

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His examples included Biden nominating Linda Thomas-Greenfield as his United Nations ambassador despite her making a speech at a Chinese-funded Confucius Institute event, the State Department reversing its policy to ban Taiwanese flags on U.S. government property to appease the Chinese government and Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee rejecting a Green New Deal amendment that would have banned the purchase of electric cars from the region in China where the Uyghurs are being held in concentration camps.

Fox News’ Emma Colton, Marisa Schultz and Jacqui Heinrich contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cruz-biden-big-tech-in-bed-vaccine-controversy

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Rob Portman says IRS enforcement off the table for funding $1.2T infrastructure package – POLITICO

“That’s one reason we’re having initial meetings today and had more meetings over the past few days on this topic. There are other ways to do this. There’s legislation, one called the Medicare Rebate Rule that provides significant revenue,” Portman said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “I’ve been on the phone a lot with the Congressional Budget Office and with the Joint Committee on Taxation over the weekend. And we have a number of pay-fors. And that’s important that it be paid for.”

The deal would have provided a $40 billion budget boost for the Internal Revenue Service after decades of cuts, funding that would presumably allow the IRS enforcement division to collect unpaid taxes. Recent IRS research says the annual tax gap between 2011 and 2013 was $441 billion, and a Treasury Department analysis used that figure to project a $584 billion gap for 2019.

The Senate left town last week with a lot of unfinished business on the bipartisan infrastructure deal, despite Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s attempt to push it forward by advancing a floor vote on Wednesday.

IRS enforcement was already on its way out Thursday night.

Portman didn’t say whether or not the bill could be finalized by Schumer’s “arbitrary deadline,” but said it’s “more important to get it right.”

“We are still negotiating. In fact, last night I was negotiating some of the final details with the White House and later today we’ll be having additional negotiations with the Republicans and Democrats who come together to put this bill into a track that’s very unusual for Washington,” he said.

“This is a little confusing for people because it’s actually 11 Republicans and 11 Democrats putting this together. Chuck Schumer, with all due respect, is not writing the bill. Nor is [Senate Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell, by the way. So that’s why we shouldn’t have an arbitrary deadline of Wednesday.”

Source Article from https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/18/portman-irs-enforcement-infrastructure-package-499988

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Biden’s surgeon general backs localized mask mandates as delta variant drives rise in covid cases – The Washington Post

“The good news,” he said, “is not only is the vaccine highly effective at preventing severe infection, like hospitalizations and deaths, but even if you do have a breakthrough infection, which, again, happens in a very small minority of people, it’s likely to be a mild or asymptomatic infection. So my hope is that people will feel reassured by that.”

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/07/18/vivek-murthy-covid-vaccines/

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Senator Urges Holding Platforms Liable for Covid Misinformation – Bloomberg

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Source Article from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-18/senator-urges-holding-platforms-liable-for-covid-misinformation