Trump news – live: Series of explosive allegations made against president including accusations he asked China to help him win 2020 election
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A pre-publication release of John Bolton's upcoming book unleashed a flood of shocking revelations about Donald Trump's presidency, including asking Xi Jinping to help his re-election campaign and voicing his approval of Chinese internment camps for Muslims.
Trump meanwhile said he would support Colin Kaepernick's return to the NFL, and said if there was one thing he could change about his handling of race relations was his "tone".
Police reform hangs in the balance as Democrats and Republicans move forward with separate bills following the president's executive order to increasing policing standards.
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Elizabeth Warren labels Mike Pence 'pathetic' and 'reckless' as veep downplays virus fears and promotes Tulsa rally
The popular Massachusetts senator and presidential candidate has lashed out at the veep over his contention that there is no second wave of the coronavirus (not yet, as the country is still mired in the first, according to Dr Fauci).
Pence appeared on Fox and Friends yesterday morning and insisted that Trump's rally at the BOK Center arena in downtown Tulsa would go ahead as planned on Saturday "but the campaign is also considering other areas adjacent to the arena to allow the president to address even more people."
Pence said earlier this week that Oklahoma had “flattened the curve”, which was entirely untrue. The state set a daily record of new cases on Tuesday of 228 and is among the nearly half the states that have seen coronavirus infections rise since May when governors began loosening social distancing orders.
In Tulsa itself, the infection rate is also rising steadily after remaining moderate for months. The four-day average number of new cases in the city has doubled from the previous peak in April. The city's own health department director, Dr Bruce Dart, has said he hopes the rally will be postponed, noting that large indoor gatherings are partially to blame for the recent spread.
The veep did acknowledge the health risks of bringing so many people together on Tuesday - the campaign having said it had received more than 1m ticket requests.
"It's all a work in progress. We've had such an overwhelming response that we're also looking at another venue. We're also looking at outside activities, and I know the campaign team will keep the public informed as that goes forward," he said.
"But it's one of the reasons that we're going to do the temperature screening and we're going to provide hand sanitizers and provide masks for people that are attending."
Meanwhile, an Oklahoma judge has denied a petition for a court order to block the event from happening until organisers adopt social distancing measures.
The lawsuit, filed by two Tulsa businesses and two immunocompromised city residents, said the prospect of assembling tens of thousands of shouting, chanting people inside an enclosed arena amounted to a "super-spreader" coronavirus event in the making.
"As currently planned, the event will endanger not only the health of guests in attendance... but the entire Tulsa community and any community to which the guests may afterward travel," the lawsuit argued, to no avail.
Here's Andrew Naughtie with more.
System of a Down denounce MAGA 'hypocrites'
As conservative fans of bands like Rage Against the Machine and Black Sabbath take exception to their heroes making political statements (having apparently never actually listened to the lyrics of any their songs), the frontman of the Armenian American metallers, Serj Tankian, adds his voice to the debate in typically ferocious style.
Here's Louis Chilton on his timely interjection.
Trump trailing in polls because people don't want to admit they support him, former press secretary says
Oliver O'Connell has this unflattering but certainly plausible insight from Sean Spicer - the White House spokesman turned reality TV ballroom dancer turned journalist.
Facebook has removed several Trump ads in recent months
The social network has removed several adverts by Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential re-election campaign from the platform, according to one of the company’s senior executives.
Former UK deputy prime minister Nick Clegg - now Facebook’s vice president of global affairs and communications - rejected claims the tech giant had not done enough to tackle misinformation and said the company had pulled “a number” of Trump campaign ads.
Adam Forrest has the full story.
Brendan Gleeson playing Trump in new series about conflict with James Comey
Justin Vallejo has this first look at the legendary Irish actor embodying The Donald for a new Showtime series due to air after November's election and based on his long-running feud with the ex-FBI boss, played by Jeff Daniels.
Tucker Carlson broadcasts stunningly alarmist and inaccurate 'report' on Seattle's occupied zone
Another day, another absolutely absurd segment on Fox.
Dr Fauci: 'Of course I wouldn't attend Tulsa rally'
Here's more from the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who had this to say when asked by The Daily Beast whether he himself would venture down to Oklahoma this Saturday: "I'm in a high-risk category. Personally, I would not. Of course not".
Speaking to NPR, the nation's top diseases expert revealed that he had not spoken to President Trump in over two weeks, an alarming revelation at ther height of a pandemic.
Gino Spocchia has more on his current round of media appearances.
Senate Republicans unveil police reform bill
More than three weeks after George Floyd's killing in police custody spurred protests nationwide, Senate Republicans are presenting their legislation to tackle systemic racism in US law enforcement.
Democrats will then advance their own bill out of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee.
"The American people have spoken, and we hear you," Senator Tim Scott, the chamber's lone black Republican, who crafted the legislation, said in a post on Twitter.
The two bills address similar issues. Both make lynching a federal hate crime, encourage the use of body cameras and seek better training standards for police.
But it is not clear that Congress will agree on how to act.
Democrats claim the Republican plan does not go far enough, while Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has said the Democratic legislation would go nowhere in his chamber, dismissing it as "typical Democratic overreach."
Unlike the Democratic legislation, the Republican bill is not expected to allow victims of misconduct to sue police, ban police chokeholds outright or create new rules to restrict the use of lethal force.
Instead, Republicans rely on the use of federal grant money to encourage police departments to adopt reforms.
As we’ve seen, Trump yesterday signed an order that would steer federal money to police departments that agree to outside review and limit the use of chokeholds.
Two ‘boogaloo’ militia men charged in drive-by killing of California courthouse guard
Two men inspired by the militant anti-government “boogaloo” movement have been charged in the drive-by killing of a federal courthouse guard in Oakland, California, last month during a night of nearby protests against police brutality.
One of the men, US Air Force sergeant Steven Carrillo, had already been charged with killing a sheriff's deputy in a violent confrontation with law enforcement in the Santa Cruz Mountains that ended in his arrest on 6 June.
On Monday, federal prosecutors charged him - along with suspected accomplice Robert Alvin Justus Jr - with murder in the fatal ambush of Federal Protective Service officer David Patrick Underwood, who was gunned down at his guard post outside Oakland's US courthouse on 29 May.
Juneteenth to be made official holiday in Virginia
Governor Ralph Northam said his state, once home to the capital of the Confederacy, will become the second to grant all employees a day's leave on the date commemorating the abolition of slavery following Texas.
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