1. COVID-19: Texas Governor has mandated the wearing of face masks
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has ordered face coverings to be worn in public as coronavirus cases rocket in the state.
The directive applies to counties with 20 or more Covid-19 cases, which covers most of Texas' 254 counties.
Texas hit a record of more than 8,000 virus cases in a day on Wednesday, up from about 2,400 two weeks ago.
Americans are about to mark the Fourth of July weekend, with some beaches coast to coast shut and fireworks displays cancelled.
There have now been 2.7 million recorded infections nationwide and more than 128,000 deaths since the pandemic began.
What did the Texas governor say?
"Wearing a face covering will help us to keep Texas open for business," Mr Abbott said, announcing the order.
After an initial warning, those who refuse will face a fine up to $250.
"Let me be clear: no-one can ever be put in jail for violating this safe practice," the governor said.
"Covid-19 is not going away," Mr Abbott, a Republican, said on Thursday. "In fact it's getting worse."
Warning that some hospital intensive care units were almost full, he added: "We are now at a point where the virus is spreading so fast there is little margin for error."
The order includes a series of "common sense" exemptions, including children who are 10 years old or younger, those who have a medical condition that prevents them from wearing a mask, people who are eating or drinking and those who are exercising outdoors.
Texas is now one of 21 states that require mask wearing in public, according to Masks4All, a volunteer advocacy group.
But the move by Mr Abbott was described as "far too little, far too late" by the Texas Democratic Party.
2. Donald Trump administration moves ahead with plan to open new pandemic office as COVID-19 crisis intensifies
The Trump administration disbanded the National Security Council's pandemic response office in 2018 -- and now, on the defensive after a failed response to the coronavirus pandemic, they are planning to launch a similar office at the State Department.
The National Security Council hosted an interagency meeting Thursday to discuss the plans for the office, which will fall under the leadership of a new position: coordinator for pandemics, a senior administration official said.
The goal of Thursday's meeting was to flush out the details and establish a proposal for President Donald Trump to approve -- but the push to start a new office has drawn criticism from health experts and former officials, some of whom question whether this new unit is being located at the State Department, and not the NSC, simply to differentiate from the Obama administration effort.
Officials who had worked on that pandemic response team -- the directorate for global health and security and bio-defense -- lamented the Trump administration's move to gut the office, a stance the White House contests, arguing it reassigned staff and streamlined bureaucracy.
'Deja vu all over again'
Former officials say the administration could have been better prepared for the pandemic if it had left the original office in place instead of trying to replicate it even as the virus gained new ground. As the US hit a record Wednesday for the highest single day count of new infections, these former officials said having the original unit in place "absolutely" would have made a difference in coordinating a more expedient and effective response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has now cost more than 125,000 American lives.
Lisa Monaco, who served as President Barack Obama's homeland security adviser and oversaw the creation of the NSC's global health directorate, told CNN's New Day on Thursday that the Trump administration's office "is deja vu all over again."
Health experts, meanwhile, say that the State Department has a crucial role to play in a pandemic response, but the key coordinating role must be played by the White House. Some raised questions about the potential impact that this new office could have on highly successful programs at the US Agency for International Development and the possibility it might drain funding and resources away from them, further hurting global health efforts.
The NSC and the State Department did not reply to a request for comment.
Monaco pointed out that the Obama administration had deliberately placed the directorate within the National Security Council, which takes policy recommendations from agencies across the government and uses them to advise the President, "because in an epidemic like Ebola, in a pandemic like Covid-19, what you need is a whole of government response and you need swift action. And you need swift decisions from the President, and you need that policy coordinated across the entire government."
"This move now to set this unit, re-set this unit up, although in a different building, on the one hand is the recognition that you do indeed need a specific identified place to constantly be focusing on pandemic response," Monaco said. "That is good. On the other hand, really what we are seeing here is the risk of repeating mistakes all over again."
She pointed to the Trump administration putting a new unit for biodefense and pandemic response at the Department of Health and Human Services in 2018. When the coronavirus pandemic began spreading, the administration began using a task force under the Secretary of Health and Human Services Alexander Azar. "That did not work," she said, and the administration eventually brought the coordination effort back to the White House under Vice President Mike Pence, where a broader, more all-encompassing effort is easier to coordinate.
Trump administration officials believe that their proposal for a new office must be focused on public health, but also on diplomacy, the senior administration official told CNN. That is one reason that officials see the State Department as the appropriate place to house the new effort.
There is also support in Congress for this effort, the official said, noting that housing the office at the State Department means it will have more longevity and less turnover.
'Void of leadership'
But Monaco argued that putting it at State "doesn't make sense," and health experts also pointed to shortcomings of that plan.
Steve Morrison, director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said there is a point in having the State Department play a role in a global pandemic, particularly in coordinating support and outreach to lower income countries. But that's not enough, he said.
"Putting it in State Department, in theory, is a good thing, but it has to be done side by side with something at the White House," Morrison told CNN. "The White House is about really taking the entire government's approach and representing the President and restoring the leadership of the White House."
"There's a huge void of leadership from this administration on what's happening outside our borders and this is the moment when the administration should wake up and start doing something that's deliberate and very serious," Morrison said. "Restoring leadership at the NSC should be a first prerequisite for going ahead."
Both Morrison and Monaco said the administration was making a serious mistake in pulling out of the World Health Organization. "This recognition that you need diplomacy. Absolutely, you need diplomacy in a pandemic response," Monaco said. "That is one of the reasons we should not be pulling out of the World Health Organization, and the most effective diplomacy can be done by the President and the vice president."
White House's attempts to reduce government by slashing health programs could hurt response to coronavirus
White House's attempts to reduce government by slashing health programs could hurt response to coronavirus
The Obama administration established the global health directorate in 2015 after the Ebola epidemic of 2014 to help coordinate the response and housed this office at the NSC because of proximity to the president, and because the interagency process already goes through that body. "In a health security crisis, speed is essential. When this new coronavirus emerged, there was no clear White House-led structure to oversee our response, and we lost valuable time," wrote Beth Cameron, the former director of the office, in a Washington Post oped.
Former national security adviser John Bolton directed that the unit be disbanded in 2018 shortly after he took the job. The unit's leader, Timothy Ziemer, left the administration and other members of the team were reassigned to other units within the NSC. When the administration came under fire for downplaying the pandemic and mismanaging the response nationally, Trump denied closing the directorate, saying he didn't know about it.
3. The New Nathan Law: Leading young democracy activist flees Hong Kong
One of Hong Kong's most prominent young democracy activists has fled the territory after China imposed a sweeping, controversial security law.
Nathan Law, a one-time student leader and local legislator who spent time in prison after 2014's "Umbrella Protests", said he would continue his advocacy work from abroad.
"I think the movement is still pretty much alive," he told the BBC.
Despite the high personal risk, he said "Hong Kong people will not give up".
While activists say the new law erodes freedoms, Beijing has dismissed the criticism.
Hong Kong's sovereignty was handed back to China by Britain in 1997 and certain rights were supposed to be guaranteed for at least 50 years under the "one country, two systems" agreement.
Why people are scared of Hong Kong's new law
Minutes after new law, voices quit
But opponents of the new law, which targets secession, subversion and terrorism with punishments of up to life in prison, say it effectively ends freedom of speech.
Within moments of it being announced on Tuesday, Mr Law said he was stepping down from Demosisto Party, which he co-founded with well-known activist Joshua Wong. At the time, he said the law marked the start of a "bloody cultural revolution".
What did Nathan Law say?
On Wednesday, Mr Law spoke via videolink to a US Congressional hearing on Hong Kong. He told American politicians he was worried about returning to the territory, for fear of being imprisoned by Beijing.
"Merely speaking about the plight of HongKongers on an occasion like this, contradicts the new national security law," he told the hearing.
"So much is now lost in the city I love: the freedom to tell the truth."
Describing the new extensive powers that China will be able to use in the territory, he warned that "we used to think of secret police as something abstract, now it is a very real fear".
4. How the national security law has brought China's authoritarian legal system to Hong Kong
When Beijing announced it would impose a national security law on Hong Kong six weeks ago, many people feared the legislation could extend China's authoritarian reach over the semi-autonomous city and undermine its cherished rule of law.
Some Hong Kong officials tried to allay those concerns, despite admitting they had not yet seen a draft of the law -- which was written behind closed doors in Beijing. With the full text of the law finally available for dissection, however, a number of legal experts have found their worst fears confirmed.
"(It's) even worse than the worst-case scenario I had expected," Eric Cheung, a legal scholar at the University of Hong Kong, said on Facebook hours after the law was released late Monday, adding the legislation was "full of features of China's socialist legal system, and is poles apart from the spirit and the legal language of Hong Kong's common law."
Since its handover to China in 1997, Hong Kong has maintained the common law system inherited from the territory's 150 years under British colonial rule. Its independent judiciary and robust rule of law have long been deemed key to the city's success as a global financial center.
Hong Kong and Beijing officials have argued the law is necessary and overdue, and promised it will only affect a tiny minority of Hong Kongers, while returning "stability and prosperity" to the city.
"The national security law is a crucial step to ending chaos and violence that has occurred over the past few months," Carrie Lam, the city's chief executive, said Wednesday. "It's a law that has been introduced to keep Hong Kong safe. The legislation is lawful, constitutional and reasonable."
Chinese officials have stressed the national security law is "tailor-made" for Hong Kong, and is different from the Chinese version enacted in the mainland. But in many ways, the legislation still bears a serious resemblance.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has ordered face coverings to be worn in public as coronavirus cases rocket in the state.
The directive applies to counties with 20 or more Covid-19 cases, which covers most of Texas' 254 counties.
Texas hit a record of more than 8,000 virus cases in a day on Wednesday, up from about 2,400 two weeks ago.
Americans are about to mark the Fourth of July weekend, with some beaches coast to coast shut and fireworks displays cancelled.
There have now been 2.7 million recorded infections nationwide and more than 128,000 deaths since the pandemic began.
What did the Texas governor say?
"Wearing a face covering will help us to keep Texas open for business," Mr Abbott said, announcing the order.
After an initial warning, those who refuse will face a fine up to $250.
"Let me be clear: no-one can ever be put in jail for violating this safe practice," the governor said.
"Covid-19 is not going away," Mr Abbott, a Republican, said on Thursday. "In fact it's getting worse."
Warning that some hospital intensive care units were almost full, he added: "We are now at a point where the virus is spreading so fast there is little margin for error."
The order includes a series of "common sense" exemptions, including children who are 10 years old or younger, those who have a medical condition that prevents them from wearing a mask, people who are eating or drinking and those who are exercising outdoors.
Texas is now one of 21 states that require mask wearing in public, according to Masks4All, a volunteer advocacy group.
But the move by Mr Abbott was described as "far too little, far too late" by the Texas Democratic Party.
2. Donald Trump administration moves ahead with plan to open new pandemic office as COVID-19 crisis intensifies
The Trump administration disbanded the National Security Council's pandemic response office in 2018 -- and now, on the defensive after a failed response to the coronavirus pandemic, they are planning to launch a similar office at the State Department.
The National Security Council hosted an interagency meeting Thursday to discuss the plans for the office, which will fall under the leadership of a new position: coordinator for pandemics, a senior administration official said.
The goal of Thursday's meeting was to flush out the details and establish a proposal for President Donald Trump to approve -- but the push to start a new office has drawn criticism from health experts and former officials, some of whom question whether this new unit is being located at the State Department, and not the NSC, simply to differentiate from the Obama administration effort.
Officials who had worked on that pandemic response team -- the directorate for global health and security and bio-defense -- lamented the Trump administration's move to gut the office, a stance the White House contests, arguing it reassigned staff and streamlined bureaucracy.
'Deja vu all over again'
Former officials say the administration could have been better prepared for the pandemic if it had left the original office in place instead of trying to replicate it even as the virus gained new ground. As the US hit a record Wednesday for the highest single day count of new infections, these former officials said having the original unit in place "absolutely" would have made a difference in coordinating a more expedient and effective response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has now cost more than 125,000 American lives.
Lisa Monaco, who served as President Barack Obama's homeland security adviser and oversaw the creation of the NSC's global health directorate, told CNN's New Day on Thursday that the Trump administration's office "is deja vu all over again."
Health experts, meanwhile, say that the State Department has a crucial role to play in a pandemic response, but the key coordinating role must be played by the White House. Some raised questions about the potential impact that this new office could have on highly successful programs at the US Agency for International Development and the possibility it might drain funding and resources away from them, further hurting global health efforts.
The NSC and the State Department did not reply to a request for comment.
Monaco pointed out that the Obama administration had deliberately placed the directorate within the National Security Council, which takes policy recommendations from agencies across the government and uses them to advise the President, "because in an epidemic like Ebola, in a pandemic like Covid-19, what you need is a whole of government response and you need swift action. And you need swift decisions from the President, and you need that policy coordinated across the entire government."
"This move now to set this unit, re-set this unit up, although in a different building, on the one hand is the recognition that you do indeed need a specific identified place to constantly be focusing on pandemic response," Monaco said. "That is good. On the other hand, really what we are seeing here is the risk of repeating mistakes all over again."
She pointed to the Trump administration putting a new unit for biodefense and pandemic response at the Department of Health and Human Services in 2018. When the coronavirus pandemic began spreading, the administration began using a task force under the Secretary of Health and Human Services Alexander Azar. "That did not work," she said, and the administration eventually brought the coordination effort back to the White House under Vice President Mike Pence, where a broader, more all-encompassing effort is easier to coordinate.
Trump administration officials believe that their proposal for a new office must be focused on public health, but also on diplomacy, the senior administration official told CNN. That is one reason that officials see the State Department as the appropriate place to house the new effort.
There is also support in Congress for this effort, the official said, noting that housing the office at the State Department means it will have more longevity and less turnover.
'Void of leadership'
But Monaco argued that putting it at State "doesn't make sense," and health experts also pointed to shortcomings of that plan.
Steve Morrison, director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said there is a point in having the State Department play a role in a global pandemic, particularly in coordinating support and outreach to lower income countries. But that's not enough, he said.
"Putting it in State Department, in theory, is a good thing, but it has to be done side by side with something at the White House," Morrison told CNN. "The White House is about really taking the entire government's approach and representing the President and restoring the leadership of the White House."
"There's a huge void of leadership from this administration on what's happening outside our borders and this is the moment when the administration should wake up and start doing something that's deliberate and very serious," Morrison said. "Restoring leadership at the NSC should be a first prerequisite for going ahead."
Both Morrison and Monaco said the administration was making a serious mistake in pulling out of the World Health Organization. "This recognition that you need diplomacy. Absolutely, you need diplomacy in a pandemic response," Monaco said. "That is one of the reasons we should not be pulling out of the World Health Organization, and the most effective diplomacy can be done by the President and the vice president."
White House's attempts to reduce government by slashing health programs could hurt response to coronavirus
White House's attempts to reduce government by slashing health programs could hurt response to coronavirus
The Obama administration established the global health directorate in 2015 after the Ebola epidemic of 2014 to help coordinate the response and housed this office at the NSC because of proximity to the president, and because the interagency process already goes through that body. "In a health security crisis, speed is essential. When this new coronavirus emerged, there was no clear White House-led structure to oversee our response, and we lost valuable time," wrote Beth Cameron, the former director of the office, in a Washington Post oped.
Former national security adviser John Bolton directed that the unit be disbanded in 2018 shortly after he took the job. The unit's leader, Timothy Ziemer, left the administration and other members of the team were reassigned to other units within the NSC. When the administration came under fire for downplaying the pandemic and mismanaging the response nationally, Trump denied closing the directorate, saying he didn't know about it.
3. The New Nathan Law: Leading young democracy activist flees Hong Kong
One of Hong Kong's most prominent young democracy activists has fled the territory after China imposed a sweeping, controversial security law.
Nathan Law, a one-time student leader and local legislator who spent time in prison after 2014's "Umbrella Protests", said he would continue his advocacy work from abroad.
"I think the movement is still pretty much alive," he told the BBC.
Despite the high personal risk, he said "Hong Kong people will not give up".
While activists say the new law erodes freedoms, Beijing has dismissed the criticism.
Hong Kong's sovereignty was handed back to China by Britain in 1997 and certain rights were supposed to be guaranteed for at least 50 years under the "one country, two systems" agreement.
Why people are scared of Hong Kong's new law
Minutes after new law, voices quit
But opponents of the new law, which targets secession, subversion and terrorism with punishments of up to life in prison, say it effectively ends freedom of speech.
Within moments of it being announced on Tuesday, Mr Law said he was stepping down from Demosisto Party, which he co-founded with well-known activist Joshua Wong. At the time, he said the law marked the start of a "bloody cultural revolution".
What did Nathan Law say?
On Wednesday, Mr Law spoke via videolink to a US Congressional hearing on Hong Kong. He told American politicians he was worried about returning to the territory, for fear of being imprisoned by Beijing.
"Merely speaking about the plight of HongKongers on an occasion like this, contradicts the new national security law," he told the hearing.
"So much is now lost in the city I love: the freedom to tell the truth."
Describing the new extensive powers that China will be able to use in the territory, he warned that "we used to think of secret police as something abstract, now it is a very real fear".
4. How the national security law has brought China's authoritarian legal system to Hong Kong
When Beijing announced it would impose a national security law on Hong Kong six weeks ago, many people feared the legislation could extend China's authoritarian reach over the semi-autonomous city and undermine its cherished rule of law.
Some Hong Kong officials tried to allay those concerns, despite admitting they had not yet seen a draft of the law -- which was written behind closed doors in Beijing. With the full text of the law finally available for dissection, however, a number of legal experts have found their worst fears confirmed.
"(It's) even worse than the worst-case scenario I had expected," Eric Cheung, a legal scholar at the University of Hong Kong, said on Facebook hours after the law was released late Monday, adding the legislation was "full of features of China's socialist legal system, and is poles apart from the spirit and the legal language of Hong Kong's common law."
Since its handover to China in 1997, Hong Kong has maintained the common law system inherited from the territory's 150 years under British colonial rule. Its independent judiciary and robust rule of law have long been deemed key to the city's success as a global financial center.
Hong Kong and Beijing officials have argued the law is necessary and overdue, and promised it will only affect a tiny minority of Hong Kongers, while returning "stability and prosperity" to the city.
"The national security law is a crucial step to ending chaos and violence that has occurred over the past few months," Carrie Lam, the city's chief executive, said Wednesday. "It's a law that has been introduced to keep Hong Kong safe. The legislation is lawful, constitutional and reasonable."
Chinese officials have stressed the national security law is "tailor-made" for Hong Kong, and is different from the Chinese version enacted in the mainland. But in many ways, the legislation still bears a serious resemblance.
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