California, Michigan and other states are dialing back reopening plans as coronavirus cases surge. New York City has decided not to let restaurants resume indoor service next week as planned, and Miami Beach has reinstated a curfew ahead of the Independence Day weekend. Donald Trump said the coronavirus pandemic is just going to “disappear” as cases climbed across the nation. In an interview with Fox, he said: “I think we’re gonna be very good with the coronavirus. I think that at some point that’s going to sort of just disappear, I hope.” New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have restricted travel from parts of the country that are experiencing a spike in coronavirus cases. Travelers coming from 16 states will have to quarantine for two weeks upon arrival in the tri-state region. A CIA official chose not to tell Trump of Russia bounty report, top adviser claimed. The claim from Robert O’Brien came as top members of the administration gave differing accounts on why Trump didn’t take action in response to intelligence reports that Russia paid bounties to the Taliban for killing American soldiers. The heads of four big tech firms – Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook – have agreed to participate in a House judiciary committee hearing in late July. The House judiciary antitrust subcommittee has been investigating whether the market power of these tech giants poses a threat to competition. The agreement was first announced in a New York Times interview with the representative David Cicilline of Rhode Island, who heads the subcommittee. It ends a stalemate between lawmakers and the heads of the tech firms – this will mark the first time the CEOs of all four companies will testify together. The Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign raised $131m in June, eclipsing the total they raised in any month in 2016, according to the RNC. The campaign has $295m on hand. How will that be spent? Here’s one way, per CNBC: President Donald Trump’s campaign, facing a growing disadvantage in polls, has started reserving spots for a television ad blitz set to run in several swing states during the final months of the race. The ad buy, worth more than $90 million, comes as some in the Trump campaign see warning signs in multiple key states, including Michigan, Georgia and North Carolina, according to people familiar with the matter. Ad tracking firms Advertising Analytics and Medium Buying announced that Trump’s campaign is reserving ad time starting in September in the key states of Arizona, Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Trump won all six states in 2016. The ad buy comes on top of the ads currently airing against Joe Biden in North Carolina. An ember is defined as a small piece of burning or glowing coal or wood in a dying fire. Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, echoed her boss’s insistence on Wednesday that America is seeing mere embers of the coronavirus pandemic, even as daily cases rocket to a record 48,000. At the press briefing, I asked through my face mask why she keeps referring to cases as embers when the latest surge more closely resembles a wildfire. McEnany replied: “I use the word ‘embers’ because that is what the president acknowledged that would happen around the country. You would see spikes across the country. “He said at times you would see a fire across the country. Embers, fires, but at the same time, I would note the sixfold increase in testing, you identify more cases. I would also note that Secretary Azar said that we’ve seen nationwide fatalities at a two month low.” She added: “So this is a different situation... We believe we’re equipped to handle what we see on the horizon.” McEnany was also reminded that Trump recently repeated his infamous claim that the virus will just disappear. She insisted: “The president’s confident that it will disappear. He’s confident that he’s put together a revolutionary, first class team that is going to break through bureaucracy and get us a vaccine.” The White House has been much criticised for trying to wish the pandemic away. McEnany began Wednesday’s briefing with an attention deflecting claim that Seattle had been “liberated from anarchists” – a reference to police clearing protesters away from the city’s autonomous zone. Past press secretaries became accustomed to defending Trump’s social media posts with the phrase “the tweet speaks for itself”. Questioned about the president’s deleted retweet of a video in which a man shouted “white power!”, McEnany said without irony: “The deletion speaks for itself.” The Guardian’s Vivian Ho has more from California, where the governor has ordered the closure of all recently reopened bars and halted indoor operations of restaurants, movie theaters, museums and zoos across the majority of the state following a surge in coronavirus cases. The order affects 19 counties, amounting to 70% of California’s population, with some of the counties on the governor’s list among the most populous in the state: Los Angeles, Sacramento and Santa Clara. “The bottom line is the spread of this virus continues at a rate that is particularly concerning,” Gavin Newsom said on Wednesday. California has seen 5,898 new cases in the past 24 hours and recorded 110 deaths. The positivity rate over the past 14 days increased from 4.6% two weeks ago to 6%. Newsom issued the order after much of the state’s economy had cautiously reopened, operating under new guidelines that allowed for social distancing. Newsom noted in the Wednesday briefing that an uptick in cases was to be expected. “As we open our economy, as more people mix, we’re going to see an increase in spread,” he said. “This was anticipated the day we advanced our efforts to curb the spread of this virus.” Congress passes Paycheck Protection Program extension Just as the Paycheck Protection Program that offers forgivable loans to American businesses was set to expire, the House voted to extend the application period. The legislation has already passed the Senate and will now go to Trump desk for a signature. About $130bn in PPP funds were left untapped when the program stopped accepting new applications on Tuesday. The application period will now be extended till 8 August. But it’s unclear what the demand for this remaining money is. Many of the businesses shut out of the first sound of loans offered by the government went out of business. Other small businesses without banking relationships aren’t able to partake in the program, which relies on commercial lends to send out money. My colleague, voting rights reporter Sam Levine, brings us this update: Florida does not have to immediately move towards implementing a system where any person with a felony conviction can vote, a federal appeals court said Wednesday. The ruling is the latest development in one of the most significant voting rights cases in the United States. Florida is appealing a May decision from a lower court saying the state could not require those with felony convictions to repay fines and fees they owe before they can vote again if they cannot pay or figure out how much they owe. The US district Judge Robert Hinkle earlier this year also ordered Florida to come up with a formal system where someone with a felony conviction can ask the state to calculate how much they owe. There are an estimated 774,000 people in Florida, a key battleground state in the presidential election, who cannot vote because they have a felony conviction and owe money. The US court of appeals for the 11th circuit offered no reason for its explanation to pause the lower court’s ruling. In an unusual move, the court announced that the entire court would immediately consider the appeal (voting rights appeals are usually first heard by three-judge panels rather than an entire circuit court). Oral arguments in the appeal are scheduled for the week of 10 August. The decision will likely add to mounting confusion over the state’s voting policies for people with felony convictions and makes it more uncertain whether the case will be resolved before the November election. During a trial this year, state and local officials testified that it was extremely difficult to figure out just how much someone owed. The state does not have a centralized system for people to figure out how much they owe. The case is expected to eventually go all the way to the United States supreme court. Hi there, it’s Maanvi Singh, writing from the west coast. Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, has asked bars to cease serving customers indoors in parts of the state, including in the college town where about 140 infections were traced back to a single pub. Whitmer signed a bill that would allow bars and restaurants to sell cocktails to-go, in order to help businesses stay afloat through the pandemic. Pubs in parts of the state with low coronavirus case counts have been allowed to remain fully open, and throughout the state, bars can continue seating customers in outdoor patios. “Following recent outbreaks tied to bars, I am taking this action today to slow the spread of the virus and keep people safe,” said Whitmer. “If we want to be in a strong position to reopen schools for in-person classroom instruction this fall, then we need to take aggressive action right now to ensure we don’t wipe out all the progress we have made.” Today so far It’s been an eventful day, let’s check in with what we’ve covered thus far: Donald Trump called Black Lives Matter a symbol of hate in response it being painted next to Trump Tower A former FDA leader is warning the US isn’t testing enough. The president then did an about-face on masks The mayor of Richmond, Virginia ordered all Confederate monuments removed. California is dialing back its reopening plans The New York tri-state doesn’t want visitors from these 16 states Keep it right here on the Politics Live Blog for more. Cuomo adds eight states to travel advisory list New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are cracking down on domestic travelers heading to their states from parts of the country that are experiencing a spike in coronavirus cases. At his press conference, New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, announced he was adding eight additional states to New York’s travel advisory, bringing the total to 16. Any residents who travel to New York from them are required to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival. “Time to wake up, America,” the governor said. “If that spread comes to New York, we could have to do this all over again. Doing this once in life is enough. We don’t need to climb another mountain.” The enhanced travel advisory comes as the former Food and Drug Administration chief Dr Scott Gottlieb estimated roughly 25% of New York City residents have likely been infected with the virus. The tri-state travel restriction now applies to the following states: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah. New York Times introduces readers to former Trump supporters The New York Times presented an eye-opening look at former supports of Donald Trump. Featuring men and women who voted for the president in 2016, but who now says there’s no chance they will vote for him this year. From one supporter: “He said he was going to, quote unquote, drain the swamp, and all he’s done is splashed around and rolled around in it.” According to New York Times/Siena College polling,they represent just 2% of all registered voters in the 6 states most likely to decide the presidency. Read more over at the Times. California governor shuts down bars and indoor dining bars as Covid-19 cases surge Effective immediately, California is instructing entertainment venues and restaurants to close their indoor operations. The dialed back reopening comes amid a drastic surge in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations in the state. From KABC: Several counties in Southern California have already ordered all beaches to close for the holiday weekend. Counties with mandatory closures should consider cancelling Fourth of July fireworks shows, the governor said, and Californians should not gather with people they do not live with. The order applies to all counties that have been on the state’s watch list for three consecutive days. Those 19 counties represent over 70% of the population of California, according to the governor, Gavin Newsom. “We bent the curve in the state of California once. We will bend the curve again. We will crush this pandemic. We will annihilate it. We’ll get past this, but we’re going to have to be tougher.” Richmond, Virginia, mayor calls for removal of all Confederate statues Levar Stoney, the mayor of Richmond, Virginia, where protests against statues honoring Confederate leaders have resulted in clashes with far-right agitators, has ordered the immediate removal of all Confederate statues in the city. “It is time to put an end to the lost cause, Replace the racist symbols of oppression and inequality,” he said.” During a Richmond City Council meeting earlier that day, the mayor introduced legislation to immediately remove the remaining Confederate statues along the city’s infamous Monument Avenue. Stoney contended his emergency powers allow him to speed up the healing process for the former capital of the Confederacy amid weeks of protests over police brutality and racial injustice. This week the Guardian spoke with Black Virginians at the statue of former Confederate leader Robert E Lee on Monument Avenue as they shared their experiences with Black hair discrimination. Trump still thinks coronavirus is just going to go away somehow, hopefully The president told Fox Business just now that “I think we’re gonna be very good with the coronavirus. I think that at some point that’s going to sort of just disappear, I hope.” New infections are at record levels in the US, an all-time high, as everyone has been reporting for days and public health experts have been warning for weeks. And, again, this: Trump does an about-face on masks - sort of - as Republicans shift Donald Trump, who has avoided being seen in public wearing a face covering, said today that he would wear a mask - if he were in close quarters with other people, in an effort to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. “I’m all for masks,” Trump told Fox Business Network, Reuters reported. “If I were in a tight situation with people I would absolutely” wear a mask, he added. But he doesn’t believe in mandating the wearing of masks nationwide, “because you have many places in the country where people stay very long distance.” Trump has only been photographed wearing a mask around others once, behind the scenes on a factory tour in May. Since the new surges of new coronavirus cases across southern and western states, after hasty reopening, that has brought the US to a new all-time high of daily infections, a change of outlook is slowly happening in GOP circles. Top congressional Republicans hauling themselves belatedly onto the mask wagon this week include Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and House minority leader Kevin McCarthy. And Mike Pence, who has been wearing a mask more of late, but has been wishy-washy on the topic of mandating, saying it’s up to local authorities. And senior Republican senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee joined a plea to Trump to wear a mask, as he chaired a hearing in Congress yesterday where public health expert Anthony Fauci gave dire warning about the virus being out of control. Alexander pleaded with Americans to take politics out of it and stop associating be For Trump with not wearing a mask and being Against Trump with wearing one. And McConnell said yesterday “we must have no stigma” about wearing masks. Here are some things the president has previously said about face masks, having early on dismissed any idea that he would or should wear one. 7 May: Trump tells aides that wearing one would “send the wrong message”. 21 May: Says he wouldn’t wear a mask in public because he “didn’t want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it”. 26 May: “Oh, OK, you want to be politically correct,” to reporter who declines to remove mask during White House press conference. 20 June: “There was a time when people thought it was worse wearing a mask. I let people make their own decision … if people want to wear masks I think that’s great. I won’t be. Not as a protest but I don’t feel that I’m in danger.” Fauci has urged mask-wearing repeatedly. In late May he said: “I want to protect myself and protect others, and also because I want to make it be a symbol for people to see that that’s the kind of thing you should be doing.” Read more here about how Trump and his public health experts diverge on science and health re Covid: Coronavirus continues to scorch Sunbelt Arizona recorded more coronavirus deaths, infections, hospitalizations and emergency-room visits in a single day than ever before in a crisis, in a day across the Sunbelt that sent a shudder through other parts of the country and led distant states to put their own reopening plans on hold. In Florida, hospitals braced for an influx of patients, with the biggest medical center in Florida’s hardest-hit county, Miami’s Jackson Health System, scaling back elective surgeries and other procedures to make room for victims of the resurgence underway across the South and West, The Associated Press reports. Vice President Mike Pence, head of the White House coronavirus task force, planned to visit Arizona today, where cases have spiked since stay-at-home orders expired in mid-May. Arizona reported record single-day highs of almost 4,900 new Covid-19 cases, 88 new deaths, close to 1,300 ER visits and a running total of nearly 2,900 people in the hospital. Florida recorded more than 6,500 new cases down from around 9,000 on some days last week, but still alarming and a running total of over 3,500 deaths. Ahead of the Fourth of July, counties in South Florida are closing beaches to fend off large crowds that could spread the virus. The run-up in cases has been blamed in part on what New Jersey’s governor called “knucklehead behavior” by Americans not wearing masks or obeying other social-distancing rules. “Too many people were crowding into restaurants late at night, turning these establishments into breeding grounds for this deadly virus,” Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez said in forbidding restaurants with seating for more than eight people from serving customers inside from midnight to 6am. Health experts say the virus in Florida and other Southern states risks becoming uncontrollable, with case numbers too large to trace. Marilyn Rauth, a senior citizen in Punta Gorda, said Florida’s reopening was “too much too soon.” “The sad thing is the Covid-19 spread will probably go on for some time though we could have flattened the curve with responsible leadership,” she said. “Experience now has shown most people won’t social distance at beaches, bars, etc. The governor evidently has no concern for the health of the state’s citizens.” Some distant states and cities that seemed to have tamed their outbreaks, including Colorado, Virginia, Delaware and New Jersey, hit pause or backtracked on some of their reopening plans for bars and restaurants. And New York and New Jersey are asking visitors from 16 states from the Carolinas to California to quarantine themselves for two weeks. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city is delaying its resumption of indoor dining at restaurants, and not because of any rise in cases there. The number of confirmed cases in the US per day has roughly doubled over the past month, hitting 44,800 on Tuesday, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University. That is higher even than what the nation witnessed during the deadliest stretch of the crisis in mid-April through early May. Former FDA leader warns there aren’t enough Covid-19 tests Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner for the US Food and Drug Administration told CNBC on Monday that the US still isn’t testing enough people for the coronavirus, especially as outbreaks accelerate in states across the country. From CNBC’s Squawk Box: “The problem is that even though we have a lot of testing — we have well more than 500,000 tests a day and that’s going to continue to grow — we’re going to be short on tests in places where there’s epidemics. States like Texas and Florida, they’re falling behind on testing right now because the testing isn’t evenly distributed across the country.” The former FDA leader’s comments come as White House health advisor Dr Anthony Fauci warned Tuesday that if the country’s outbreak continues on its current trajectory, the country could hit more than 100,000 new cases per day. Gottlieb contended the US is already there but aren’t testing enough to detect all the new patients.