Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday that he hasn't spoken to President Donald Trump in weeks, and warned that America is still not through the first wave of coronavirus cases.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Fauci, the government's top infectious-disease expert, said that risky behavior as states reopen their economies is likely leading to a resurgence in COVID-19 cases.

"When I look at the TV and I see pictures of people congregating at bars when the location they are indicates they shouldn't be doing that, that's very risky," he said.


While the White House has dismissed the increase in coronavirus cases as a result of more widespread testing, Fauci told the Journal that, in many states, the upswing in new cases "cannot be explained by increased testing."

To those paying attention, the evidence about Covid-19 and the lockdown response is clear. We've been sold a pup.

The UK Government itself has confirmed several times that the virus is not serious to the majority of people who catch it. The lockdown was a panic-driven overreaction.

The facts and figures of what is known about Covid-19 are not really much disputed. More, it's a question of how those facts translate into ways to deal with the threat. My contention is that anyone looking at the facts, figures, and basic science cannot possibly agree that the response to the crisis is appropriate to the risk and proportionate in terms of wider implications.

US President Donald Trump is being savaged for praising the government scientists who'd "come up with the AIDS vaccine," with his haters holding it up as proof of incipient dementia. But it's not as outlandish as it sounds.

Trump made the remark during a press conference on Tuesday before signing an executive order on police reform, making a momentary diversion to update reporters on the progress towards a vaccine against Covid-19. Predicting researchers will have "a very successful vaccine, therapeutic, and cure" before the end of 2020, he hailed the "incredible scientists and doctors" who'd come up with "many other cures and therapeutics over the years" - including an AIDS vaccine that doesn't actually exist.

The president caught himself, referring instead to "the therapeutic for AIDS" and noting that the disease was once a "death sentence," but can now be treated "with a pill." Dozens of drugs are currently marketed to manage HIV infection and stop it from progressing into AIDS, though patient advocates complain many treatments are prohibitively expensive.

The European Union's foreign policy chief on Tuesday said moves by President Trump to sanction officials associated with the International Criminal Court (ICC) are "unacceptable and unprecedented."

"The European Union expresses grave concern about the announced measures and reconfirms its unwavering support for the International Criminal Court," Josep Borrell, the EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said in a statement.

"Sanctions against those involved in the work of the ICC, its staff and their families as well as persons associated with the ICC are unacceptable and unprecedented in scope and content," he continued.

The plane used by Boris Johnson and members of the royal family for international travel is being repainted in the colours of the Union flag to "better represent" the UK abroad.

The red, white and blue "rebranding" will cost about £900,000, No 10 said.

Downing Street said it represented "value for money" and that all of the work was being done in the UK.

But opposition parties were critical, saying the money would be better spent on helping the victims of coronavirus.

No 10 said the aircraft was currently in Cambridgeshire for pre-planned repainting in "national branding".

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) isn't likely to have heard the old Australian working-class expression that a man is too crooked to lie straight in bed. It meant that lying and cheating are in the nature of a deformity, and can't be operated on or cured. "The Salisbury Poisonings", the three-part, three-hour film which concluded its run on Tuesday evening, was composed by individuals like that.

That isn't news. From the beginning in March 2018, the BBC has been a platform for the British Government's narrative that Russia, directed by President Vladimir Putin, waged chemical warfare on British soil, attempting to assassinate Sergei and Yulia Skripal, and then killing Dawn Sturgess. In May of 2018 - almost three months after the Skripals were attacked on March 4; one month before Sturgess was hospitalised — the corporation broadcast a series of interviews with the medical staff at Salisbury District Hospital attempting to prove that a Russian-made nerve agent called Novichok had been the weapon of the crime. The BBC broadcaster, Mark Urban — he admitted later - had been preparing interviews with Skripal by arrangement with the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), and then to have produced his book on the case with the NATO information warfare unit, Bellingcat. In November 2018, the corporation broadcast a fresh hour claiming to be the "inside story" of the Salisbury nerve agent attack.

The corporation then began negotiations on an even longer version of the story. By mid-May 2019 money was committed and other terms agreed for what was initially planned to be "a two-part factual drama". Casting followed; filming began in October of that year. The drama was stretched into three parts. The facts were stretched, too.

Unravelling the facts composed by a crooked man trying to lie straight can be a whodunit of the conventional English type. This time, though, the BBC has revealed the complicated plot of a true crime hatched in the Cabinet Office in London by a character the new film introduces with an untraceable name.

Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said the removal was not a reflection on New Zealand's relationship with Iraq.

"Although the embassy is closing, our strong commitment to the global fight against terrorism remains," Mr Peters said.

"New Zealand will continue to contribute its other lines of effort against ISIS, including through a small number of military roles in the coalition and the provision of stabilisation funding to Iraq."

"The embassy was opened in 2015 to support the New Zealand Defence Force military deployment to Iraq and, with the withdrawal of the majority NZDF troops from Taji earlier this year, the primary rationale for the embassy in Baghdad has been removed."

Recently released documents have revealed details about a shipment of deadly pathogens in 2019 from Canada's National Microbiology Lab to China — confirming publicly for the first time who sent them, what was shipped, and where it ended up.

Dr. Xiangguo Qiu, her husband Keding Cheng, and her students from China were removed from Canada's only level-4 lab over what has been described as a possible "policy breach," according to CBC.

The Public Health Agency of Canada had requested the RCMP to step in several months earlier.

Shipments of the viruses are said not to be related to the outbreak of COVID-19 or research into the pandemic. PHAC also said the shipment and Qiu's eviction from the lab were not related in any way.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on policing Tuesday amid increasing pressure and nationwide protests over the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks and other Black people in custody or at the hands of law enforcement officers.

"Today is about pursuing common sense and fighting, fighting for a cause like we seldom get the chance to fight for," Trump said. "We have to find common ground."

Trump said that his executive order would set standards on the use of force "as high and as strong as there is on Earth" and that he would prioritize federal grants to police departments that met those standards.

The order would leverage federal grant money to encourage police departments to meet a set of standards, including a ban on chokeholds except when an officer's life is at risk, the president said. The Supreme Court, however, has already said that under the Constitution, deadly force is allowed only when police officers fear for their own safety or that of others.

If Canada's current foreign policy is any indication, should it win a UN Security Council seat on Wednesday, it would more likely buttress the positions of Washington than to pursue independent, let alone principled positions.

When Canada's largest online news site asked readers whether they support Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's efforts to get a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council (UNSC) or not, it should have probably been little more than a formality.

Not only does the Toronto Star often reflect the positions of the Liberal Party, but its readership tends to lean to the Center and hold the sort of values that align with the UN mission as well as with Canada's projected image as a sort of international 'good neighbor.'

Surprisingly, however, patrons weren't convinced with the idea that "Canada deserves a seat on the UNSC."