Gunfire left dozens of Americans dead or wounded this Fourth of July weekend as they celebrated the holiday or just enjoyed the time off.In Chicago, 17 people were shot to death and 70 wounded, all in what appear to be separate crimes that police blame on feuds and warfare between rival gangs.The dead include a 14-year-old boy and a 7-year-old girl shot in the head outside her grandmother’s house during a Fourth of July party. Police say 11 other children are among the wounded.Chicago isn’t the only U.S. city where children lost their lives over the weekend. Other victims include a 6-year-old boy in San Francisco; another 6-year-old boy in Philadelphia; an 11-year-old girl in Columbia, Missouri; an 8-year-old girl in Atlanta, and an 8-year-old boy in Hoover, Alabama.’You shot and killed a baby’The Atlanta shooting happened near the Wendy’s restaurant where Rayshard Brooks, an African American man, died in police custody June 12. The fast food outlet was later burned, and the area has become a site for frequent demonstrations against police brutality.Police said the girl’s mother tried to drive through illegally placed barricades when shots were fired at their vehicle Saturday night.”You shot and killed a baby,” Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said, according to The Atlanta Journal Constitution. “And there wasn’t just one shooter, there were at least two shooters.”Police in the nation’s capital also are looking for clues in the shooting death of an 11-year-old award-winning youth football player. Davon McNeal had stopped by a cookout to pick up a phone charger and earbuds when a gunfight broke out on the street while July Fourth fireworks were exploding over the National Mall.Police say McNeal’s mother, Crystal, was known in her neighborhood for mediating between feuding gangs and negotiating truces. But it is unclear if her intervention had anything to do with her son’s killing.The coach of Davon’s football team said Davon wanted to become a pro player, saying kids like him are being robbed of their lives “for nothing.”‘I want all of us to feel this loss’Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, referring to the 13 children who were wounded or killed, on Monday called them “our children.””I say our children because I want all of us to feel this loss. It feels personal to me,” she said. “Thoughts and prayers are simply not enough at this point. Sorrow itself is not enough. What it says is we need to do better as a city.”The mayor also spoke directly to the young men whom she said “shot indiscriminately into crowds.””I sincerely pray on behalf of a grieving city that you are able to recognize the consequences of what you have done, the souls you have ruptured, and I pray that you find the purpose … that is obviously lacking in your lives,” she said.Police said Monday they do not know how many suspects have been arrested in the  weekend spate of shootings.A suspect has been taken into custody for questioning in the killing of Natalia Wallace, the 7-year-old girl shot down outside her grandmother’s house in Chicago.Natalia’s father told police his daughter was on the sidewalk when as many as three men jumped out of a car and stared firing at another group of men nearby.Police Superintendent David Brown said part of the problem is the inability of the justice system to keep violent criminals behind bars. He said programs where suspects are fitted with electronic monitors are “clearly not working” because there are too many to track.He also said gang members who are released from jails early intimidate witnesses.”Gangsters threaten not just you if you come forward, they threaten your family,” he said. 
 
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A U.S. federal judge has ruled in favor of Michael Pack, the chief executive of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, in a lawsuit over Pack’s decision to fire the heads of government-funded international news agencies. District Court Chief Judge Beryl Howell denied a request to reverse Pack’s decision to replace the agency heads, saying the decision belongs “at the ballot box” rather than in court.  The judge ruled last week that the suit filed on behalf of the Open Technology Fund, a nonprofit corporation that supports global internet freedom technologies, had “fallen short of making the requisite showings.” The fund had argued that Pack did not have the legal authority to dismiss Libby Liu, the chief executive of Open Technology, or fire the chiefs of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks. Pack, who took control of USAGM last month, also oversees Voice of America, but the lawsuit pertains to Pack’s dismissals of the heads of the USAGM entities, not his oversight of VOA.Pack is the first Senate-confirmed CEO of USAGM following a major overhaul of the agency’s leadership structure that Congress approved in late 2016 and former President Barack Obama signed into law. The changes gave expansive new powers to the CEO over all of the U.S. government-funded civilian broadcasters, including the power to set budgets and terminate funding for agencies the CEO no longer sees as effective. FILE – Michael Pack, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the U.S. Agency for Global Media, is seen at his confirmation hearing, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, September 19, 2019. Pack’s nomination was confirmed June 4, 2020.Howell noted, “Congress has decided to concentrate unilateral power in the USAGM CEO, and the Court cannot override that determination.” The lawsuit by the Open Technology Fund argued that the agencies of USAGM are protected from political interference by a “strict ‘firewall’ embodied in statutes, regulations, and binding contract provisions.” The suit contended that Pack’s actions “constitute the most egregious breach of that firewall in history.” Howell said, “Pack’s actions have global ramifications, and plaintiffs in this case have expressed deep concerns that his tenure as USAGM CEO will damage the independence and integrity of U.S.-sponsored international broadcasting efforts.”  However, Howell said, “If Pack’s actions turn out to be misguided, his appointment by the President and confirmation by the Senate points to where the accountability rests: at the ballot box.” In an email last month to VOA’s hundreds of broadcasters, editors, writers and support staff, Pack pledged to uphold the government’s mandated independence from outside political interference over VOA. However, some outside watchdogs and news organizations, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, have voiced fears about Pack’s willingness to resist political pressure, citing his record as a conservative filmmaker and associate of former Trump chief White House strategist Stephen Bannon. Pack told the Washington Examiner last month that the reason he fired the four agency heads was to create a fresh start and said “it is not atypical to do that” at the beginning of an administration. “It was my view that on day one, by changing senior leadership, I could create this change,” he said.  Pack said he is seeking to “bring objectivity and balance” to the programs run by the USAGM. “All I’m trying to do is bring the agency back in keeping with its mission,” he said. 
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Country music firebrand and fiddler Charlie Daniels, who had a hit with “Devil Went Down to Georgia,” has died at age 83.  A statement from his publicist said the Country Music Hall of Famer died Monday at a hospital in Hermitage, Tennessee, after he had a stroke, doctors said.  He had suffered what was described as a mild stroke in January 2010 and had a heart pacemaker implanted in 2013 but continued to perform. Daniels, a singer, guitarist and fiddler, started out as a session musician, even playing on Bob Dylan’s “Nashville Skyline” sessions. Beginning in the early 1970s, his five-piece band toured endlessly, sometimes doing 250 shows a year. “I can ask people where they are from, and if they say Waukegan,' I can say I've played there. If they sayBaton Rouge,’ I can say I’ve played there. There’s not a city we haven’t played in,” Daniels said in 1998. Daniels performed at White House, at the Super Bowl, throughout Europe and often for troops in the Middle East. He played himself in the 1980 John Travolta movie “Urban Cowboy” and was closely identified with the rise of country music generated by that film. FILE – Charlie Daniels Band: “The Essential” CD. Daniels started out as a session musician, and playe on Bob Dylan’s “Nashville Skyline” sessions. Beginning in the early 1970s, his five-piece band toured endlessly, sometimes doing 250 shows a year.”I’ve kept people employed for over 20 years and never missed a payroll,” Daniels said in 1998. That same year, he received the Pioneer Award from the Academy of Country Music. In the 1990s Daniels softened some of his lyrics from his earlier days when he often was embroiled in controversy. In “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” a 1979 song about a fiddling duel between the devil and a whippersnapper named Johnny, Daniels originally called the devil a “son of a bitch,” but changed it to “son of a gun.” In his 1980 hit “Long Haired Country Boy,” he used to sing about being “stoned in the morning” and “drunk in the afternoon.” Daniels changed it to “I get up in the morning. I get down in the afternoon.” “I guess I’ve mellowed in my old age,” Daniels said in 1998. Otherwise, though, he rarely backed down from in-your-face lyrics. His “Simple Man” in 1990 suggested lynching drug dealers and using child abusers as alligator bait. His “In America” in 1980 told this country’s enemies to “go straight to hell.” Such tough talk earned him guest spots on “Politically Incorrect,” the G. Gordon Liddy radio show and on C-Span taking comments from viewers. He hosted regular Volunteer Jam concerts in Nashville in which the performers usually were not announced in advance. Entertainers at these shows included Don Henley, Amy Grant, James Brown, Pat Boone, Bill Monroe, Willie Nelson, Vince Gill, the Lynyrd Skynyrd Band, Alabama, Billy Joel, Little Richard, B.B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eugene Fodor and Woody Herman. Daniels, a native of Wilmington, N.C., played on several Bob Dylan albums as a Nashville recording session guitarist in the late 1960s, including “New Morning” and “Self-Portrait.” Eventually, at the age of 71, he was invited to join the epitome of Nashville’s music establishment, the Grand Ole Opry. He was inducted in the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2016. He said in 1998 that he kept touring so much because “I have never played those notes perfectly. I’ve never sung every song perfectly. I’m in competition to be better tonight than I was last night and to be better tomorrow than tonight.” Daniels said his favorite place to play was “anywhere with a good crowd and a good paycheck.” 
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President Donald Trump is understating the danger of the coronavirus to people who get it, as more and more become infected in the U.S.  
In his latest of many statements playing down the severity of the pandemic, Trump declared that 99% of cases of COVID-19 are harmless. That flies in the face of science and of the reality captured by the U.S. death toll of about 130,000. Trump also sounded a dismissive note about the need for breathing machines.
Throughout the pandemic, Trump has declared it under control in the U.S. when it hasn’t been. His remarks on that subject and more from the past week:Virus threatTrump: “Now we have tested over 40 million people. But by so doing, we show cases, 99% of which are totally harmless.” — Fourth of July remarks Saturday.The Facts: This statement does not reflect the suffering of millions of COVID-19 patients.
The World Health Organization, for one, has said about 20% of those diagnosed with COVID-19 progress to severe disease, including pneumonia and respiratory failure. Whatever the numbers turn out to be, it’s clear that the threat is not limited to the merest sliver of those who get the disease.
Aside from that, those with mild or no symptoms also can spread the virus to others who are more vulnerable.
Asked Sunday to defend Trump’s claim, Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn declined to do so. He instead urged Americans not to back off the federal government’s public health measures urging social distancing and wearing a mask.
“What I’ll say is that we have data in the White House task force,” Hahn told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “Those data show us that this is a serious problem. People need to take it seriously.”Trump: “Our tremendous Testing success gives the Fake News Media all they want, CASES. In the meantime, Deaths and the all important Mortality Rate goes down. … Anybody need any Ventilators???” — tweet Saturday.The Facts: No, increased testing does not fully account for the rise in cases. People are also infecting each other more than before as distancing rules recede and “community spread” picks up. And as cases surge, so has demand for ventilators once again in parts of the U.S.
“One of the things is an increase in community spread, and that’s something that I’m really quite concerned about,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, testified Tuesday.
Adm. Brett Giroir, the Health and Human Services official overseeing the nation’s coronavirus testing efforts, told Congress on Thursday that the increases can’t be explained by just additional testing. “We do believe this is a real increase in cases because of the percent positivities are going up,” he said.
In areas of the U.S., the demand for ventilators is approaching the highs seen in April. For instance, the number of patients requiring ventilators in Miami-Dade County has increased from 61 two weeks ago to 158 on Saturday, according to Miami-Dade figures posted by the county online. The highest number of patients on ventilators was 198, on April 9.
As for Trump’s point about mortality coming down, Fauci said that is not a relevant measure of what is happening in the moment with infections. “Deaths always lag considerably behind cases,” he said. “It is conceivable you may see the deaths going up.”Trump: “We’ve made a lot of progress; our strategy is moving along well. …We’ve learned how to put out the flame.” — Fourth of July remarks Saturday.  
Trump, describing the COVID-19 threat as “getting under control”: “Some (places) were doing very well, and we thought they (the virus) may be gone and they flare up, and we’re putting out the fires.” — remarks Thursday on a jobs report.Trump: “I think we are going to be very good with the coronavirus. I think that, at some point, that’s going to sort of just disappear, I hope.” — interview Wednesday on Fox Business Network.The Facts: “The virus is not going to disappear,” says Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert. Nor can it be considered “under control” and its flame “put out” as cases have been surging to fresh daily highs.  
The number of confirmed cases in the U.S. per day has roughly doubled over the past month, hitting over 50,000 this past week, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University. That is higher even than what the country experienced from mid-April through early May, when deaths sharply rose.
Fauci warned last week that the increase across the South and West “puts the entire country at risk” and that new infections could reach 100,000 a day if people don’t start listening to guidance from public health authorities to wear a mask and practice social distancing.
Arizona, California, Florida and Texas have recently been forced to shut down bars and businesses as virus cases surge. The U.S. currently has more than 2.7 million known cases and many more undetected.
Fauci has said there “certainly” will be coronavirus infections in the fall and winter.Vice President Mike Pence: “While we’re monitoring about 16 states that are seeing outbreaks, it represents about 4% of all the counties in this country.” — interview with CBS aired on June 28.The Facts: That’s a misleading portrayal of the virus threat. More than 20% of Americans actually live in those relatively few counties.
The White House provided The Associated Press with the full list of U.S. counties that reported increases in COVID-19 cases as of a week ago, when Pence and other administration officials repeatedly cited the low county tally. The list showed 137 of the 3,142 counties in the U.S. that were under a higher alert — indeed, about 4% in that snapshot of time.
But measured by population, those counties represent a vastly higher share — more than 1 in 5 people in the U.S.
Altogether there are 68.3 million people living in those 137 counties, while there is a total U.S. population of 322.9 million. That means 21.1% of U.S. residents actually live in the virus “hot spots” identified in the list.Trump on BidenTrump: “Biden was asked questions at his so-called Press Conference yesterday where he read the answers from a teleprompter. That means he was given the questions.” — tweet Wednesday.The Facts: Joe Biden, Trump’s Democratic presidential rival, did not read answers off a teleprompter. Nor did the AP, which asked the first question at the briefing, submit questions in advance.  
Biden used a teleprompter to read prepared remarks that took aim at Trump’s handling of the coronavirus, before the questions and answers started, at which point the teleprompter appeared to have been turned off.  
Biden’s campaign gave him a list of news organizations to call on and he answered questions from reporters on that list as well as some he chose spontaneously. That’s not an uncommon practice when officials give news conferences.  
Video footage shows that during nearly 30 minutes of questions and answers, Biden often looked directly at the reporter, not at the teleprompter. His answers were at times long-winded, without the practiced pauses typically heard in prepared speeches.
Biden campaign national press secretary TJ Ducklo called Trump’s allegation “laughable, ludicrous and a lie.”
Trump’s accusation reflected his tactic of trying to stir doubts about Biden’s mental acuity.Trump: “He wants to defund and abolish police.” — interview Wednesday on “America This Week.”
The Facts: Biden does not join the call of protesters who demanded “defund the police” after George Floyd’s killing.
“I don’t support defunding the police,” Biden said last month in a CBS interview. But he said he would support conditioning federal aid to police based on whether “they meet certain basic standards of decency, honorableness and, in fact, are able to demonstrate they can protect the community, everybody in the community.”
Biden’s criminal justice agenda, released long before he became the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee, proposes more federal money for “training that is needed to avert tragic, unjustifiable deaths” and hiring more officers to ensure that departments are racially and ethnically reflective of the populations they serve.
Specifically, he calls for a $300 million infusion into existing federal community policing grant programs.
That adds up to more money for police, not defunding law enforcement.
Biden also wants the federal government to spend more on education, social services and struggling areas of cities and rural America, to address root causes of crime.War in Iraq
Kayleigh Mcenany, White House press secretary: “You have this President who, when Washington was unanimous in saying, ‘We’re going into Iraq,’ this President said, ‘No, that’s not the right decision.'” — news briefing Tuesday.The Facts: That’s false. Trump voiced support for going into Iraq, as much as he and now his press secretary insist otherwise. And Washington was not unanimous in supporting the invasion.
On Sept. 11, 2002, when radio host Howard Stern asked Trump whether he supported a potential Iraq invasion, Trump said: “Yeah, I guess so.”
On March 21, 2003, just days after the invasion, Trump said it “looks like a tremendous success from a military standpoint.”
Later that year, he began expressing reservations.
More than 150 members of Congress voted against the 2002 resolution to authorize President George W. Bush to use military force against Iraq. That is not unanimity.  MemorialsTrump: “We are tracking down the two Anarchists who threw paint on the magnificent George Washington Statue in Manhattan. … They will be prosecuted and face 10 years in Prison.” — tweet Tuesday.Trump: “Since imposing a very powerful 10 year prison sentence on those that Vandalize Monuments, Statues etc., with many people being arrested all over our Country, the Vandalism has completely stopped.” — tweet on June 28.The Facts: Trump does not have the authority to impose prison sentences — a president is not a judge. Nor can he toughen penalties on his own.
Trump signed an executive order last week to protect monuments, memorials and statues, calling on the attorney general to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law any person or group that destroys or vandalizes a monument, memorial or statue.
The order basically instructs the attorney general to enforce laws that already exist.  Associated Press writers Adriana Gomez Licon in Miami, and Alexandra Jaffe, Zeke Miller and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.
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Forty lobbyists with ties to President Donald Trump helped clients secure more than $10 billion in federal coronavirus aid, among them five former administration officials whose work potentially violates Trump’s own ethics policy, according to a report.
The lobbyists identified Monday by the watchdog group Public Citizen either worked in the Trump executive branch, served on his campaign, were part of the committee that raised money for inaugural festivities or were part of his presidential transition. Many are donors to Trump’s campaigns, and some are prolific fundraisers for his reelection.  
They include Brian Ballard, who served on the transition, is the finance chair for the Republican National Committee and has bundled more than $1 million for Trump’s fundraising committees. He was hired in March by Laundrylux, a supplier of commercial laundry machines, after the Department of Homeland Security issued guidance that didn’t include laundromats as essential businesses that could stay open during the lockdown. A week later, the administration issued new guidance adding laundromats to the list.
Dave Urban, a Trump adviser and confidant, has collected more than $2.3 million in lobbying fees this year. The firm he leads, American Continental Group, represents 15 companies, including Walgreens and the parent company of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, on coronavirus issues.  
Trump pledged to clamp down on Washington’s influence peddling with a “drain the swamp” campaign mantra. But during his administration, the lobbying industry has flourished, a trend that intensified once Congress passed more than $3.6 trillion in coronavirus stimulus.
While the money is intended as a lifeline to a nation whose economy has been upended by the pandemic, it also jump-started a familiar lobbying bonanza.  
“The swamp is alive and well in Washington, D.C.,” said Mike Tanglis, one of the report’s authors. “These (lobbying) booms that these people are having, you can really attribute them to their connection to Trump.”  
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.  
Shortly after Trump took office, he issued an executive order prohibiting former administration officials from lobbying the agency or office where they were formerly employed, for a period of five years. Another section of the order forbids lobbying the administration by former political appointees for the remainder of Trump’s time in office.  
Yet five lobbyists who are former administration officials have potentially done just that during the coronavirus lobbying boom:  
— Courtney Lawrence was a former deputy assistant secretary for legislation in the Department of Health and Human Services in 2017 and 2018. She became a lobbyist for Cigna in 2018 and is listed as part of a team that has lobbied HHS, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and at least two other agencies. Cigna did not respond to a request for comment.  
— Shannon McGahn, the wife of former White House counsel Don McGahn, worked in 2017 and 2018 as a counselor to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. She then joined the National Association of Realtors as its top lobbyist and is listed on disclosures as part of a team that has lobbied both houses of Congress, plus six agencies, including the Treasury Department. The Realtors association did not respond to a request for comment.  
— Jordan Stoick is the vice president of government relations at the National Association of Manufacturers. Stoick’s biography on NAM’s website indicates that he is “NAM’s lead lobbyist in Washington,” where he started working after serving as a senior adviser in the Treasury Department. Disclosures indicate that Stoick and his colleagues lobbied both houses of Congress plus at least five executive branch agencies, including Treasury.  
“NAM carefully adheres to the legal and ethical rules regulating lobbying activity, including ensuring that its employees comply with all applicable prohibitions on contacting their former employers,” Linda Kelly, the organization’s general counsel, said in a statement.
— Geoffrey Burr joined the firm Brownstein Hyatt after serving as chief of staff to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. The firm’s lobbying disclosure for the first quarter of 2020 includes Burr on a list of lobbyists who contacted the White House and Congress on coronavirus-related matters on behalf of McDonald’s.
— Emily Felder joined Brownstein Hyatt after leaving the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, where she worked in the legislative office. Felder is listed on a disclosure from the first quarter of 2020 that shows she was part of a team that lobbied Congress and the White House.
A spokeswoman for the firm said both Felder and Burr abide by the Trump administration’s ethics rules, which limit their lobbying to the House and the Senate.  
“We are confident that our lobbyists are in compliance with all lobbying rules and applicable prohibitions and did not violate their Trump Administration pledge,” spokeswoman Lara Day said in a statement.  
Public Citizen’s Craig Holman, who himself is a registered lobbyist, said the group intends to file ethics complaints with the White House. But he’s not optimistic that they will lead to anything. Last year, he filed more than 30 complaints, all of which were either ignored or rejected.
“There does not appear to be anyone who is enforcing the executive order,” Holman said.
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