A San Francisco bus driver was assaulted with a bat after he asked three passengers to comply with the city’s health orders and wear a mask, the AP reports. The assault occurred Wednesday when three passengers boarded a bus and refused the driver’s request to don a face covering. The driver then pulled over. “As the victim was escorting the males off the bus one of the males pulled out a wooden bat and struck the victim several times, which caused the victim to be injured,” San Francisco police said. Public transit workers have faced significant risks during the pandemic. Many transit agencies were slow to provide basic protections, such as face masks and paid sick leave. Dozens of transit workers in New York City died of Covid-19. As mask orders have been enacted around the world, transit workers are often faced with the difficult choice of enforcing the orders themselves or allowing scofflaws to risk their own and others’ safety. In early July, a French bus driver died following an assault by passengers who refused to wear masks. Visitors to Washington DC from coronavirus “hot spots” will be required to self-quarantine for 14 days, mayor Muriel Bowser said today. In her order, Bowser notes that “after a promising period of decline, new daily cases exceeded one hundred” in the District on 22 July. The order also encourages residents to take “staycations” and avoid travel to areas with high rates of Covid-19 transmission. The self-quarantine order excludes people who travel to DC from nearby Maryland or Virginia, as well as those whose travel is considered essential, such as members of Congress who travel back and forth to their districts. Earlier this week, Bowser also signed an order expanding the requirements for residents to wear face masks. A federal judge has ruled against the Oregon attorney general’s office demand that federal law enforcement agents in Portland identify themselves, BuzzFeed News reports. Attorney general Ellen Rosenblum had filed suit in federal court challenging the presence and activities of officers from the Department of Homeland Security in Portland. Rosenblum had asked that the court bar the officers from making arrests or detaining people without probably cause, and to require them to identify themselves and explain the reason for an arrest or detention. Per BuzzFeedNews: US District Judge Michael Mosman found that state Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum lacked standing to bring a lawsuit on behalf of Oregon residents because her office hadn’t articulated any specific state interest beyond the constitutional rights of individuals. There are several other lawsuits over the DHS forces presence in Portland pending. On Thursday, a different federal judge issued a temporary restraining order against the DHS agents barring them from arresting or using force against journalists and legal observers without probably cause of a crime. He may be a world-renowned immunologist and the nation’s foremost expert in infectious diseases, but Anthony Fauci’s throwing arm left much to be desired when he threw out the first pitch at the Nationals-Yankees game last night. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Fauci agreed with the critics that his pitch was less a “pitch” and more of a “line drive toward first base” (although this critic might quibble by calling it a “bloop toward first base”). He also explained how a one-time high school shortstop and longtime Yankees-turned-Nationals fan came to look so unfamiliar with the basic premise of throwing a ball toward home plate: he was sore. “I completely destroyed my arm!” Fauci told the Journal. The 79-year-old decided to throw some practice pitches two nights before his big moment, overdid it, and woke up in pain. Then, when he got out onto the field Thursday night, he made a split-second decision and attempted a fastball. “When I saw he was so far away, I said I better try to throw a bullet,” he said. “And that was a mistake ... Instead of doing my normal motion of just lobbing the ball, which would’ve been the best thing to do, I thought: Oh, baby, I better put a lot of different oomph into it. “And I did. And you saw what happened.” Pelosi rejects temporary extension of unemployment benefits, wants full deal As negotiations over a new coronavirus relief bill continue, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has rejected the idea of a temporary extension of the enhanced unemployment benefits that are set to expire 31 July, Reuters reports. “I would be very much averse to separating this [unemployment benefits] out and lose all leverage [on Republicans] for ... meeting all of the other needs,” Pelosi told reporters. The enhanced unemployment benefits provide an extra $600 per week to state unemployment payments. The Democratic-controlled House passed a $3 trillion dollar relief bill in May that would, among other things, extend the benefits through January. The Republican-controlled Senate has declined to debate or pass the House bill, nor has it produced a plan of its own. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said Republicans will introduce a new proposal next week, and has indicated it would take a few weeks to negotiate an agreement, leaving a gap for millions of unemployed workers. Pelosi also revealed that actor Rob Reiner, the son of the recently deceased comedian Carl Reiner, is among the people who has urged her for extending the benefits. “I called Rob. ‘Rob, Rob darling, this is Nancy Pelosi, I’m calling to wish you and Michele my condolences. I’m so sad, your father was so funny and so wonderful,’” she said, according to Reuters. “This man says, ‘I think you have the wrong number.’ And he says, ‘But I’m so glad you called me. I have one question for you ... am I going to get my $600?’” Donald Trump signed four executive orders related to prescription drug pricing at a White House event with HHS secretary Alex Azar and Florida governor Rod DeSantis, among others. Most attendees at the event wore masks, but Trump did not. The executive orders come as Trump appears to have all but given up on controlling the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 145,000 people in the US – by far the most of any country. The orders are aimed at allowing the legal importation of prescription drugs from Canada, lowering the cost of insulin, addressing “kickbacks to middlemen” in the pharmaceutical industry, lowering the price of drugs purchased by Medicare. Hello everyone, this is Julia Carrie Wong in Oakland, California, picking up the live blog for the rest of your Friday afternoon. Yesterday, a judge in King County, Washington ordered five Seattle news outlets to comply with a subpoena and turn over unpublished video and photos from a 30 May protest. It’s a troubling ruling and many journalists and publications are already speaking out. From our story: Michele Matassa Flores, the Seattle Times’ executive editor, said the paper strongly opposed the subpoena and “believes it puts our independence, and even our staff’s physical safety, at risk. “The media exist in large part to hold governments, including law enforcement agencies, accountable to the public,” Matassa Flores said. “We don’t work in concert with government, and it’s important to our credibility and effectiveness to retain our independence from those we cover.” Seattle protesters seek recompense for injury and death linked to police actionRead more The lawyer representing the media companies, Eric Stahl, argued on Thursday that police were casting too wide a net and could not show that the images would identify the suspects. The media companies had not decided if they would appeal, Stahl said. Here’s the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press: And another explanation of why this is concerning to working reporters, from the LA Times’s Matt Pearce: At her White House briefing earlier today, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany claimed: “Under President Trump, violent-crime rates in America finally began to fall.” But that is not January 2017. It is, instead, the year 1991, when the violent-crime rate was 758 violent crimes per 100,000 people. By 2017, that figure had fallen to 395. It did decline further in 2018, the most recent year for which full data is available, to 381. But it’s not as though this was a sharp reversal; when Barack Obama took office in 2009, the rate was 432 per 100,000. McEnany, remember, started her briefing by showing a selectively edited video of scenes in Portland, Oregon, from which even Fox News averted its eyes. Portnoy complaints: Barstool founder feels Twitter"s wrath Being a fan of the late novelist Philip Roth, I couldn’t resist the heading to this block, which concerns the response to Trump’s interview with Dave Portnoy, in this case from the Washington Post reporter David Nakamura. The interview was released online this afternoon and the Barstool Sports’ founder’s behaviour therein is attracting widespread criticism: Portnoy has also commented. “I did not expect to interview @realDonaldTrump at the White House yesterday but here we are,” he wrote, releasing footage on Twitter and adding, true to form: California sets daily deaths record Vivian Ho A short dispatch from our west coast office in Oakland… California has reached another grim coronavirus milestone, recording the highest number of virus-related deaths in a day on Friday. It was a record previously set on Thursday, when public health officials reported 157 deaths. That mark was broken within 24 hours, when the state reported 159. California surpassed New York for most total cases in the US this week, with the 9,718 reported in the last 24 hours bringing the total to 435,334. The state’s seven-day positivity rate has risen to 7.9%, with 34 of 58 counties remaining on the state’s monitoring list for at least three days. Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, has moved to halt the reopening of the state’s economy, rolling back some efforts as infection rates continue to rise. New York state attorney general Letitia James is leading a coalition of states, cities and counties suing the Trump administration over its attempt to leave undocumented migrants out of the census, the basis for the apportionment of seats in the US House of Representatives. Sam Levine’s report on that attempt follows at the bottom of this block and here’s an excerpt from it: Republicans in recent years have been pushing to exclude non-citizens and other people ineligible to vote from the tally used to draw electoral districts. In 2015, Thomas Hofeller, a top Republican redistricting expert, explicitly wrote that such a change “would be advantageous to Republicans and non-Hispanic whites”. James, meanwhile, said on Friday afternoon: “President Trump’s proclamation is the latest in a long list of anti-immigrant actions and statements he has made since the beginning of his first campaign. “It’s another election-year tactic to fire up his base by dehumanizing immigrants and using them as scapegoats for his failures as a leader. “No one ceases to be a person because they lack documentation, which is why we filed this lawsuit. Instead of fearmongering, now is the time to be engaging in a robust education and outreach campaign to ensure each person in this country is counted. We beat the president before in court, and we will beat him again.” According to James’s statement, the suit has been “filed against President Trump, the US Department of Commerce, the US Census Bureau, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, and Census Director Steven Dillingham”. The attorneys general of Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and the District of Columbia have signed on. So have the cities of Central Falls, Rhode Island; Chicago; Columbus; New York; Philadelphia; Phoenix; Pittsburgh; Providence; Seattle; the city and county of San Francisco; and Cameron, El Paso, and Hidalgo counties in Texas and Monterey county in California. Today so far That’s it from me today. My Guardian colleagues will take over the blog for the next few hours. Here’s where the day stands so far: The White House defended Trump’s push to reopen schools, saying schools are “essential places of business.” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said, “It is our firm belief that our schools are essential places of business, if you will, that our teachers are essential personnel.” That comment will likely be a bit jarring for parents trying to decide whether or not to send their young children back to school amid concerns about the spread of coronavirus in the classroom. Trump said he “often” regrets sending controversial tweets. When the president was asked during an interview yesterday whether he ever regrets his tweets, he replied, “Too often.” Trump added, “It’s not the tweets; it’s the retweets that get you in trouble.” Democrats indicated they would not allow Trump to quash a proposal on renaming military bases named after Confederate generals. The president said senator Jim Inhofe, the Republican chairman of the Senate armed services committee, would move to strip the provision out of the national defense authorization bill in committee. But the Democratic chairman of the House armed services committee said the proposal “remains an important priority for me and many of my colleagues.” Joe Biden warned Trump would “try to indirectly steal” the election. During a virtual fundraiser last night, Biden said, “This president is going to try to indirectly steal the election by arguing that mail-in ballots don’t work.” The president has repeatedly made false claims that mail-in ballots are extremely vulnerable to voter fraud, even though voter fraud is actually very rare. New York governor Andrew Cuomo suggested that senior DHS leaders should be charged for making false statements about blocking New Yorkers from the Global Entry program and related travel programs. Cuomo’s comments came one day after federal lawyers acknowledged in a court filing that DHS officials made false statements about the policy. The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned. The Democratic chairman of the House armed services committee voiced opposition to Trump’s effort to quash the proposal to rename military bases named after Confederate generals. The president said this morning that senator Jim Inhofe, the Republican chairman of the Senate armed services committee, would move to strip the provision out of the national defense authorization bill in committee. “That’s just not how this works,” Democratic commitee chairman Adam Smith said in a tweet. Smith noted that both the House and Senate versions of the national defense authorization act, which passed the two chambers with veto-proof majorities, included the proposal to rename the bases. “The renaming of military bases and installations remains an important priority for me and many of my colleagues in the House,” Smith said. “I look forward to the conference process, where we will discuss the issue.” In his interview with Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, the president also appeared nostalgic for his pre-White House life. “The best day in my life in terms of business and life and everything was the day before I announced I’m running for president,” Trump said. “Everything was good.” The president added he was “really glad” he decided to run, but he lamented how he was treated “very unfairly with fake Russia.” (The US intelligence community has concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election to aid Trump’s campaign.) “It’s a very vicious business,” Trump said. The president said he found it harder to deal with his own country than dealing with the leaders of foreign countries like Russia, China and North Korea. “The toughest is the United States,” Trump said. “It’s the toughest to deal with.” Trump says he "often" regrets his tweets During an interview at the White House yesterday, Trump said he “often” regrets the tweets he sends out. Dave Portnoy, the highly controversial founder of the blog Barstool Sports, just shared his interview with Trump. In it, Portnoy asked the president if he ever regrets sending certain tweets. “Too often,” the president replied. “It used to be in the old days, before this, you’d write a letter, and you’d say, ‘This letter’s really bad.’ You’d put it in your desk, and then you’d go back tomorrow and you’d say, ‘Oh, I’m glad I didn’t send it,’ right? But we don’t do that with Twitter, right? “We put it out instantaneously,” Trump continued. “We feel great, and then you start getting phone calls, ‘Did you really say this?’ I say, ‘What’s wrong with that?’ And you find a lot of things.” The president added, “It’s not the tweets; it’s the retweets that get you in trouble.” He warned of the trouble that arises when “you see something that looks good and you don’t investigate it.” Of course, it’s unclear how the medium of Twitter prevents Trump from investigating the source of his information before sharing it with his 84 million followers. Virginia has removed monuments honoring Confederate generals and officials from its state capitol. The AP reports: Virginia House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn, a Democrat, quietly ordered the Lee statue and busts of generals J.E.B. Stuart, Stonewall Jackson, Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and others removed from the historic Old House Chamber. A moving crew worked through the night Thursday — carefully removing the monuments and their plaques and loading them into a truck and taking them to an undisclosed location. The stealth approach avoids the possibility of protests or a lawsuit to keep the monuments in place, but may prompt criticism that the monuments were moved without public discussion. ‘Virginia has a story to tell that extends far beyond glorifying the Confederacy and its participants,’ Filler-Corn said in a statement. ‘Now is the time to provide context to our Capitol to truly tell the commonwealth’s whole history.’ A number of Confederate monuments have been taken down since the police killing of George Floyd, which kicked off nationwide protests against racism and police brutality. Earlier this week, the House of Representatives similarly passed a bill calling on states to replace any Confederate statues they still have in the US Capitol. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has now concluded today’s briefing. During the briefing, McEnany claimed Trump has been consistent in his messaging on coronavirus. “He hasn’t changed his tone,” McEnany told reporters. That comment came one day after the president announced he was canceling the Jacksonville portion of the Republican convention out of safety concerns, even though Trump originally moved the convention to the Florida city in order to have a large, indoor event. Trump also strongly urged Americans to wear masks for the first time this week, more than three months after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention initially recommended the use of face coverings to limit the spread of coronavirus.