First Thing: Covid-19 is closing down California all over again

Good morning.

California governor Gavin Newsom has bowed to the inevitable and ordered a dramatic rollback of the state’s reopening amid the resurgence in coronavirus infections. Bars are to close across the nation’s most populous state, while restaurants, cinemas and museums must cease any indoor operations.

It is a pattern being repeated around the world, with Hong Kong and the Philippines also returning to lockdown. As WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned on Monday, “There are no short cuts out of this pandemic.”

Play Video

1:28

California’s two largest school districts, Los Angeles and San Diego, have meanwhile announced that their classes will remain online-only throughout the fall, despite the Trump administration’s continuing push to reopen schools across the US in September.

Geoffrey Kabaservice’s home state of Florida is the worst hit region in the US. Its flawed response to the pandemic should not come as a shock, he says:

Floridians historically have shown a ferocious individualism and an unwillingness to abide by state government restrictions. In addition, the severe economic damage inflicted by the shutdown surely has made people more willing to engage in magical thinking about how the dangers of the virus have been inflated by the media and the establishment.

• Racial bias has dogged the US coronavirus response at every level, reports Kenya Evelyn, putting Black and Latino Americans disproportionately at risk.

• Families of health workers who died with Covid-19 are being denied compensation from states who refuse them benefits for lost wages, hospital bills or death.

Trump aides are trying to discredit Dr Fauci

Play Video

1:59

Donald Trump still claims to have a “very good relationship” with Dr Anthony Fauci, but his administration appears intent on sidelining and discrediting its top infectious disease expert, even offering news outlets a list of Fauci’s “mistakes” regarding the Covid-19 pandemic.

Trump insisted on Monday that the US was doing “a great job” on the coronavirus, while Fauci said in an online talk that the country’s local public health infrastructure is in “tatters”. Once the face of the White House’s Covid-19 response, Fauci has not briefed the president in two months.

Roger Stone crowed about his commutation on Fox News

Trump’s longtime friend and adviser Roger Stone has made his first major television appearance since the president commuted his prison sentence last weekend, describing Trump as “a man of great justice and fairness” in an interview with another staunch ally, Fox News’s Sean Hannity.

Stone had been sentenced to more than three years in jail for his part in obstructing Robert Mueller’s investigation of the Trump campaign’s links to Russia. He claims he was the victim of a “biased judge”, “a stacked jury” and “a corrupt jury forewoman”. Republican senator Mitt Romney, on the other hand, described the commutation of Stone’s sentence as an act of “unprecedented, historic corruption” on the part of the president.

Ghislaine Maxwell is considered an “extreme” flight risk

Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyers will request the British socialite be granted bail when she appears via a video feed for her arraignment in a Manhattan federal court on Tuesday. But prosecutors have demanded she remain in jail until her trial because she has been deemed an “extreme risk of flight”. When FBI agents arrested her at a remote New Hampshire property on 2 July, Maxwell reportedly “tried to flee”.

Maxwell is facing multiple charges over her alleged involvement in Jeffrey Epstein’s trafficking of underage girls, and could be sentenced to 35 years in federal prison if found guilty.

In other news…

• The Andean condor can fly 100 miles without flapping its wings, according to a study of the world’s heaviest soaring bird, which found that the endangered species spends only 1% of its time aloft flapping its wings.

• A US judge has permanently blocked Georgia’s strict six-week abortion ban, saying the state’s controversial HB481 bill violates the constitution. Governor Brian Kemp, a supporter of the ban, said he would appeal the ruling.

• Actor Naya Rivera has been found dead after drowning in a California lake. The Glee star went missing last Wednesday; her four-year-old son was found alone in their rented boat, wearing a life jacket.

Great reads

How Nespresso’s coffee revolution got ground down

Nestlé sells around 14bn Nespresso capsules every year, to coffee drinkers in 84 countries. But the revolutionary appliance’s days may nonetheless be numbered, writes Ed Cumming, due to a rise in coffee snobbery – and a backlash against its piles of plastic waste.

Brandy: ‘Music is my therapy’

As a teenager in the 1990s, Brandy won Grammys, starred in her own sitcom, had a line of Barbie dolls and worked closely with her idol, Whitney Houston. Now she is self-releasing her first LP in eight years. “Music is my therapy,” she tells Michael Cragg. “I don’t know what my life would be without it.”

How US police use noise as a weapon

US law enforcement agencies are increasingly employing military-grade weapons such as flash-bangs and long-range acoustic devices to tackle protests. The use of sound as a means of social control can cause both physical and mental harm, as Luke Ottenhof reports.

Opinion: the two-state solution is a liberal fiction

Israel’s imminent annexation of the West Bank has led liberal Zionists to lament the demise of the two-state solution. But the idea of two states ceased to be realistic long ago, says Joshua Leifer.

References to Israel’s putative commitment to two states in theory have become a way to shield Israel from criticism, and consequences, for actions that in practice rendered a two-state solution impossible.

Last Thing: Sports Illustrated’s first trans swimsuit model

The Brazilian model Valentina Sampaio is making history by becoming the first trans woman to appear in Sports Illustrated’s annual swimsuit issue. The 23-year-old has also written a personal essay for the magazine, thanking its editors “for understanding more than anything, I am human”.

Sign up

First Thing is delivered to thousands of inboxes every weekday. If you’re not already signed up, subscribe now.