First Thing: Trump is undermining America’s coronavirus recovery – The Guardian

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Good morning.

On 16 April, the White House issued guidelines for the nations slow reemergence from lockdown. But the next day, rather than promote his own administrations advice, Donald Trump tweeted demands to immediately LIBERATE MICHIGAN, LIBERATE MINNESOTA and LIBERATE VIRGINIA. At every step of the crisis, say public health experts, the president has undermined the governments efforts.

Now, local officials are begging Trump to cancel his planned rally in Tulsa this weekend amid a surge of coronavirus cases in Oklahoma, one of six US states to report record numbers of infections in recent days.

In New Zealand, the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has asked the military to oversee the countrys quarantine process after two infected visitors entered the largely virus-free country and came into close contact with some 320 people: a fiasco Arden described as unacceptable. China has closed schools and grounded flights in response to a new outbreak in Beijing.

Meanwhile, leaders from the WHO, the UN and WWF International have issued a joint warning that pandemics result from humanitys destruction of nature. Writing in the Guardian, they call for a green recovery from the Covid-19 crisis, with legislation to restrict destructive farming and unsustainable diets.

We have seen many diseases emerge over the years such as Zika, Aids, Sars and Ebola and although they are quite different at first glance, they all originated from animal populations under conditions of severe environmental pressures. And they all illustrate that our destructive behaviour towards nature is endangering our own health.

On Tuesday, Trump appeared to address the policing reforms being demanded in the wake of the George Floyd protests, by signing an executive order to discourage officers from using chokeholds and to create a national database for police misconduct.

But critics described the order as a woeful attempt to shift focus from the presidents own divisive rhetoric. And even in his accompanying remarks, Trump seemed to deny the existence of systemic racism, blaming police violence instead on a small number of bad police officers.

A police officer used a chokehold on Manuel Ellis in the moments before his death. In video of the incident released on Monday, the officer appears to use a neck restraint on Ellis, before a second officer tasers him.

The Trump administration has sued to block the publication of a White House memoir by the former national security adviser, John Bolton, claiming it contains classified information that would compromise national security. Publishers Simon & Schuster said the book, The Room Where it Happened, depicts a president for whom getting re-elected was the only thing that mattered, even if it meant endangering or weakening the nation.

This opportunity to silence his opponents is a fight the president has been itching for, says Lloyd Green:

Sadly, the ghosts of the Pentagon Papers are back. Once again, an unmoored administration appears determined to use the courts to muzzle its critics.

Twenty members of the Indian military have been killed in a clash with Chinese forces on the disputed Himalayan border between the two Asian giants. Soldiers on both sides rarely carry firearms, in an effort to avoid such escalating conflict, so the violent face-off was reportedly fought instead with iron bars, rocks and fists and most of the victims fell to their deaths from the narrow mountain ridge.

The first fatal clash between the two nuclear states since 1975 came after Chinese forces occupied areas of disputed Himalayan territory in April and refused to leave. Julian Borger says its a conflict that could spiral further out of control:

The deadly brawl in the Galwan valley was the latest symptom of an increasingly aggressive Chinese policy on territory and borders, of the sort that has been playing out among the rocks and reefs of the South China Sea.

Live animal markets are hardly unique to China, and amid the coronavirus crisis there have been calls for their closure all the way from Wuhan to New York City. But researchers say such a move could unfairly target immigrants and their culinary cultures, without preventing the spread of disease. Kimon de Greef reports.

After months of lockdown, men in many families have grown accustomed to doing a greater share of childcare and housework. Brigid Schulte and Haley Swenson ask whether this temporary shift in gender norms could become a lasting change.

The film-maker Ivy Meeropol is the granddaughter of the Rosenbergs, the couple executed by the US for espionage in 1953 after their prosecution by Roy Cohn, the sinister fixer who went on to be Trumps mentor. Her latest documentary delves into Cohns dark legacy, she tells Charles Bramesco.

Last year, 90% of New Yorks illegal walking tickets were issued to black and Hispanic people, over an offence confected by the US automobile industry. Jaywalking laws are part of widespread systemic racism and should be abolished, says Arwa Mahdawi.

Police in Tulsa, Oklahoma, made headlines this week when they violently detained two teenage African American boys, and arrested one, for walking down a quiet street that didnt have a pavement.

Trump refuses even to wear a mask to reduce his risk of catching the coronavirus. But his Russian counterpart is taking no chances. Vladimir Putin has installed a disinfection tunnel at his residence near Moscow, which anyone visiting him must first pass through.

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First Thing: Trump is undermining America's coronavirus recovery - The Guardian