UPDATE: First post didn’t include California numbers. Now updated.The US is now conducting over 500,000 tests per day, and that might be enough to allow test-and-trace in some areas. Based on the experience of other countries, the percent positive needs to be well under 5% to really push down new infections, so the US still needs to increase the number of tests per day significantly.According to Dr. Jha of Harvard’s Global Health Institute, the US might need more than 900,000 tests per day.There were 621,114 test results reported over the last 24 hours.There were 52,982 positive tests. This is the most daily positive tests. Click on graph for larger image.This data is from the COVID Tracking Project.The percent positive over the last 24 hours was 8.5… [Read More...]

Critics have likened Clay County Sheriff Darryl Daniels' actions to "a call for vigilantism" after his comments about protesters. [Read More...]

Italian police said on Wednesday they had seized about 14 tonnes of amphetamine pills worth around 1 billion euros ($1 billion) arriving from Syria, in what they described as the world’s single largest operation of its kind. The shipment was hidden among counterfeit clothing items. [Read More...]

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has defended the president over reports that Russia offered Taliban fighters a bounty on U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan. [Read More...]

From the Census Bureau reported that overall construction spending decreased in May:Construction spending during May 2020 was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,356.4 billion, 2.1 percent below the revised April estimate of $1,386.1 billion. The May figure is 0.3 percent above the May 2019 estimate of $1,352.9 billion. During the first five months of this year, construction spending amounted to $543.2 billion, 5.7 percent above the $513.7 billion for the same period in 2019. emphasis addedPrivate spending decreased and public spending increased:Spending on private construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,001.2 billion, 3.3 percent below the revised April estimate of $1,035.2 billion. …In May, the estimated seasonally adjusted annual rate of public construction spending was $355.2 billion, 1.2 percent above the revised April estimate of $350.9 billion. … [Read More...]

An internal map from the CDC shows that as many as 32 states are not seeing any decreases in coronavirus cases, and positive lab test results have jumped to nearly 8 percent nationwide. [Read More...]

The US is now conducting over 500,000 tests per day, and that might be enough to allow test-and-trace in some areas. Based on the experience of other countries, the percent positive needs to be well under 5% to really push down new infections, so the US still needs to increase the number of tests per day significantly.According to Dr. Jha of Harvard’s Global Health Institute, the US might need more than 900,000 tests per day.There were 648,838 test results reported over the last 24 hours. This is the most test results reported daily.There were 44,358 positive tests. Click on graph for larger image.This data is from the COVID Tracking Project.The percent positive over the last 24 hours was 6.8% (red line). For the status of contact … [Read More...]

President Donald Trump has approved a plan to slash the US military presence in Germany by 9,500 troops, the Defense Department said Tuesday. Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said the move, which has sparked concerns in Berlin and in the NATO alliance, is to redeploy the troops and will “enhance Russian deterrence, strengthen NATO, (and) reassure allies,” as well as improving US strategic flexibility. The move will cut the current troop level in Germany from about 34,500 to 25,000, Trump’s stated goal. [Read More...]