BEIJING (Reuters) – China said on Thursday it has no intention of interfering in the U.S. elections, responding to U.S. President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, who has said that Trump had sought Chinese President Xi Jinping’s help to win re-election.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian made the remarks when asked about Bolton’s accusation, made in an excerpt from his book published by the New York Times.

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President Donald Trump had tweeted that transgender people would no longer be allowed to serve in the military, saying the armed forces needed to focus on “decisive and overwhelming victory,” overturning a landmark decision made by his predecessor Barack Obama.

“Not only was my career being ripped away from me, but it made me feel so insignificant to have that announcement made on that platform by the president of the United States. It was absolutely awful,” said Talbott, who was in the process of joining the Air Force National Guard.

While the past three years have been difficult for Talbott and other transgender people who want to join the military, legal experts and activists believe a ruling on Monday (here) by the U.S. Supreme Court barring discrimination against LGBT workers could help those looking to courts around the country to overturn the military’s limitations.

“It puts our existing legal claims against the ban on an even stronger footing,” said Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights and one of the lawyers challenging the Pentagon ban.

The top court’s ruling will not directly impact the ban. Four federal lawsuits challenging it are based on the Constitution’s equal protection clause and not the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

But three legal experts said that the Supreme Court decision could help those arguing against the Pentagon ban on transgender troops.

“It doesn’t mean a slam dunk for those challenging the government’s transgender ban but it makes it much more difficult (for the government),” Rachel VanLandingham, a former Judge Advocate in the U.S. Air Force and currently a professor of law at Southwestern Law School.

William Eskridge, a professor at Yale Law School, said the government’s argument to uphold the ban was flimsy.

“There is a good shot that this (Supreme Court) ruling will migrate over into the constitutional sphere. So that (means) heightened scrutiny for any discrimination against transgender persons,” Eskridge said.

The Pentagon referred questions to the Justice Department on the impact of the ruling on the military’s ban. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

‘INSPIRES SOME HOPE’

After Trump’s tweet in 2017, Talbott continued to work with an Air Force recruiter, but ultimately had to drop the process as the administration’s policy started to develop.

He joined the Army ROTC, but had to leave when the ban was fully implemented.

In March 2018, Trump backed a revised policy from then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis that disqualified most transgender people with a history of gender dysphoria from military service, and people who have undergone gender transition steps.

In January 2019 the Supreme Court allowed the Pentagon’s transgender limits to take effect, which were implemented in April that year.

The policy allowed those military personnel diagnosed with gender dysphoria under Obama’s policy to serve according to their gender identity but set limitations on those diagnosed after April 2019.

Talbott, 26, is one of the plaintiffs in federal court cases arguing against the ban.

For him, the Supreme Court ruling provided hope that he could still join the military as an intelligence official in the Army or Air Force.

“It definitely inspires some hope in me that we will continue to make victories, not only in the LGBTQ community in general, but in dealing with what we’re working on with the military,” Talbott said.

The legal battle however, may become irrelevant if Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden defeats Trump in November’s election.

Biden, vice president under Obama, has said he would direct the Pentagon to allow transgender service members to serve openly and receive medical treatment.

“That of course would be the best resolution, the quickest and best resolution,” said LGBT rights lawyer Minter.

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A Trump campaign official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said later the rally would be held at the BOK Center arena in downtown Tulsa as planned, “but the campaign is also considering other areas adjacent to the arena to allow the president to address even more people.”

Questions about logistics for the rally and its public health implications mounted as an Oklahoma judge denied a petition for a court order to block the event until organizers adopt social-distancing measures to curb coronavirus infections.

The lawsuit, filed by two Tulsa businesses and two immunocomprised city residents, said the prospect of assembling tens of thousands of shouting, chanting people inside an enclosed arena amounted to a “super-spreader” coronavirus event in the making.

“As currently planned, the event will endanger not only the health of guests in attendance … but the entire Tulsa community and any community to which the guests may afterward travel,” the lawsuit said.

Pence acknowledged the health risks of bringing so many people together – the campaign said it had received more than 1 million ticket requests – during an interview with Fox News.

“It’s all a work in progress. We’ve had such an overwhelming response that we’re also looking at another venue. We’re also looking at outside activities, and I know the campaign team will keep the public informed as that goes forward,” Pence said.

“But it’s one of the reasons that we’re going to do the temperature screening and we’re going to provide hand sanitizers and provide masks for people that are attending.”

Pence said officials were discussing options with Oklahoma’s governor.

The campaign rally will be Trump’s first since early March, when the coronavirus pandemic led to quarantines and the shuttering of the U.S. economy. Trump is seeking re-election in November against presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

“One of the reasons we chose Oklahoma is because Oklahoma has done such a remarkable job in reopening their state,” Pence said.

However, coronavirus infections are on the rise in the state, particularly around Tulsa. The city’s chief health officer has expressed concern about holding such a large indoor and said he wished the rally could be postponed.

An editorial in Tulsa’s largest newspaper said the rally would risk lives and bring no benefit to the city. It called Trump “a divisive figure” who is likely to attract protests and said there was no reason to think a rally would affect the November election in the state, which is heavily Republican.

“This is the wrong time and Tulsa is the wrong place for a Trump rally,” the Tulsa World said.

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(Reuters) – Juneteenth, an annual U.S. holiday on June 19, has taken on greater significance this year following nationwide protests over police brutality and the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks and other African Americans.

WHAT IS JUNETEENTH?

Juneteenth, a portmanteau of June and 19th, also is known as Emancipation Day. It commemorates the day in 1865, after the Confederate states surrendered to end the Civil War, when a Union general arrived in Texas to inform the last group of enslaved African Americans of their freedom under President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. In 1980, Texas officially declared it a holiday. It is now recognized in 46 other states and the District of Columbia. Although in part a celebration, the day is also observed solemnly to honor those who suffered during slavery in the United States with the arrival of the first enslaved Africans over 400 years ago.

WHAT IS SIGNIFICANT THIS YEAR?

This year Juneteenth coincides with global protests against racial injustice sparked by the May 25 death of Floyd, a black man, in Minneapolis police custody. It also accompanies the coronavirus outbreak, which has disproportionately affected communities of color. Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump, who had already been under fire for his response to both crises, drew further criticism for scheduling a Friday re-election rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He has since moved it to Saturday. Tulsa is an important and especially sensitive site where a white mob massacred African-American residents in 1921. Community organizations nationwide will devote the day to discussions on policing and civil rights ahead of the November election.

HOW ARE PEOPLE MARKING THE DAY?

People will mark the 155th anniversary across the country with festive meals and gatherings. While many cities have canceled this year’s annual parades because of the pandemic, other groups have opted for virtual conferences or smaller events. In Washington, groups plan marches, protests and rallies. Amid the wave of racial justice protests, some U.S. businesses have committed to a change of policies, including recognition of the holiday. Among the companies that have announced they will recognize Juneteenth as a paid company holiday are the National Football League here the New York Times, and Twitter and Square.

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The order comes after Trump has struck a strict “law and order” tone in his response to protests around the country sparked by the death of African American George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis.

Trump has faced criticism from Democrats for his response and some allies are concerned that his handling of the protests and the coronavirus pandemic are hurting his and other Republican leaders’ chances of re-election in November.

Senior administration officials said the order will aim to incentivize police departments to improve by tying federal approval of discretionary grants to good policing practices.

The order would encourage police departments to employ the latest standards for use of force; improve information sharing so that officers with shoddy records are not hired without their backgrounds being known and add social workers to law enforcement responses to non-violent cases involving drug addiction and homelessness, officials said.

“We’re going to be talking about things that we’ve been watching and seeing for the last month and we’re going to have some solutions,” Trump told reporters on Monday.

Law enforcement officials and families of people who have been killed by police are expected to be part of the event where Trump will sign the order.

Lawmakers in Congress are also working on legislative responses to the calls for police reform.

“Certainly we can add on to what we do by the work that’s being done in the House and in the Senate,” Trump said.

Some activists have called for taking funding from police departments. Leading Democrats and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee former Vice President Joe Biden have not embraced those calls, but Republicans have sought to tie them to the proposals to provide a contrast to Trump’s rhetoric.

“We’re not looking to defund the police. We’re looking to invest more and incentivize best practices,” one administration official said when describing the order to be signed on Tuesday.

Trump also said the shooting by police of a black man in Atlanta was very disturbing. An Atlanta police officer was fired and the police chief resigned after the killing of Rayshard Brooks on Friday night.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up a series of cases seeking to expand gun rights, showing that even with its conservative majority it remains hesitant about wading into the contentious issue.

The court rejected 10 different appeals that had piled up in recent months challenging whether various firearms restrictions violated the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment right to bear arms.

Two conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh, said they would have heard one of the cases, a dispute from New Jersey over that state’s concealed-carry gun permits. The court has a 5-4 conservative majority.

The justices left in place a lower court ruling that threw out a lawsuit challenging New Jersey’s law mandating that people who want to carry handguns in public must show they have a special reason before they can obtain a permit. The court also turned down similar cases from Massachusetts and Maryland.

The court also declined to take up appeals challenging assault weapon bans in Massachusetts and Cook County, Illinois, a jurisdiction that includes Chicago.

The Massachusetts ban, enacted in 1998, was modeled after a federal assault weapons ban that expired in 2004 and was not renewed, largely because of Republican opposition in Congress. Cook County enacted its ban in 2006. Both measures barred specific firearms including AK-47s and AR-15s.

The influential National Rifle Association and others have been seeking to expand gun rights by challenging the legality of firearms restrictions passed at the state and local level.

The Supreme Court on April 27 dismissed an NRA-backed challenge to now-repealed New York City restrictions on handgun owners transporting their firearms outside the home, sidestepping a major ruling over the scope of Second Amendment protections.

The court’s last major gun-rights ruling came a decade ago.

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The restaurant was in flames for more than 45 minutes before fire crews arrived to extinguish the blaze, protected by a line of police officers, local television showed. By that time the building was reduced to charred rubble next to a gas station.

Other demonstrators marched onto Interstate-75, stopping traffic, before police used a line of squad cars to hold them back.

The city’s police chief, Erika Shields, resigned earlier on Saturday over the shooting on Friday night of 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks, which was captured on video.

The police department has fired the officer who allegedly shot and killed Brooks, police spokesman Carlos Campos said late on Saturday. Another officer involved in the incident was put on administrative leave. Both of the officers were white.

Brooks’ death followed weeks of demonstrations in major cities across the United States sparked by the death of George Floyd, an African American who died on May 25 after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes while detaining him.

The Atlanta officer fired after Friday’s incident was identified by the police department as Garrett Rolfe, who joined the department in October 2013. The officer placed on administrative duty is Devin Bronsan, who was hired in September 2018.

Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said she had accepted the prompt resignation of police chief Shields.

“I do not believe that this was a justified use of deadly force and have called for the immediate termination of the officer,” Bottoms said at an afternoon news conference.

Brooks was the father of a young daughter who was celebrating her birthday on Saturday, his lawyers said.

Near the scene of the shooting, street protests began on Saturday, with more than 100 people calling for the officers to be charged criminally in the case.

PARKING LOT

Friday’s shooting came after police were called to the Wendy’s over reports that Brooks had fallen asleep in the drive-thru line. Officers attempted to take him into custody after he failed a field sobriety test, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

A bystander’s video showed Brooks struggling with two officers on the ground outside the Wendy’s before breaking free and running across the parking lot with what appears to be a police TASER in his hand.

A second videotape from the restaurant’s cameras shows Brooks turning as he runs and possibly aiming the TASER at the pursuing officers before one of them fires his gun and Brooks falls to the ground.

Brooks ran the length of about six cars when he turned back toward an officer and pointed what he had in his hand at the policeman, Vic Reynolds, director of the GBI, told a press conference.

“At that point, the Atlanta officer reaches down and retrieves his weapon from his holster, discharges it, strikes Mr. Brooks there on the parking lot and he goes down,” Reynolds said.

Lawyers representing the family of Brooks told reporters that Atlanta police had no right to use deadly force even if he had fired the TASER, a non-lethal weapon, in their direction.

“You can’t shoot somebody unless they are pointing a gun at you,” attorney Chris Stewart said.

Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard, Jr., said in an emailed statement that his office “has already launched an intense, independent investigation of the incident” while it awaits the findings of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Bottoms said Shields, a white woman appointed police chief in December 2016, would be replaced by deputy chief Rodney Bryant, a black man who will serve as interim chief.

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Alabama, Florida and South Carolina reported a record number of new cases for the third day in a row on Saturday, which many state health officials partly attribute to gatherings over the Memorial Day holiday weekend in late May.

Oklahoma reported record new cases for the second day in a row, and Alaska did so for the first time in weeks. Arizona and Nevada reported a near-record number of new cases.

In Louisiana, which had been one of the earlier virus hotspots, new cases were again on the rise with over 1,200 – the most there since May 21.

Nationally, there were over 25,000 new cases reported on Saturday, the highest tally for a Saturday since May 2, in part due to a significant increase in testing over the past six weeks.

Perhaps more troubling for health officials is many of these states are also seeing record hospitalizations – a metric not affected by increased testing.

Arkansas, North Carolina, Texas and Utah all had a record number of patients enter the hospital on Saturday. In South Carolina, 69% to 77% of hospital beds are occupied, depending on the region.

While Utah’s governor announced last week that most of the state would pause its reopening, no state is talking about a second shutdown as they face budget shortfalls and double-digit unemployment. Many went ahead with reopenings before meeting government infection rate guidelines for doing so.

Fears that a second wave of infections is happening – or that states failed to curb their first wave – prompted health officials to plead with the public to wear masks and avoid large gatherings.

Trump still plans to hold his first campaign rally since early March on Saturday in Tulsa, although those attending will have to agree not to hold the campaign responsible if they contract COVID-19.

About a third of the record new cases in the state came from Tulsa County, according to state data. The Tulsa Health Department on Friday said the outbreak was linked to indoor gatherings. Hospitalizations and the percent of tests coming back positive have been steady in the state.

“I have concerns about large groups of people gathering indoors for prolonged lengths of time. It is imperative that anyone who chooses to host or attend a gathering take the steps to stay safe,” said Bruce Dart, the department’s executive director, in a statement that advised people at gatherings to wear masks.

Trump has refused to wear a mask at a series of recent public events.

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The unrest broke out after dark in Atlanta, where earlier in the day Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said she had accepted the prompt resignation of police chief Erika Shields over the death on Friday night of 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks at the Wendy’s.

Images on local television showed the restaurant in flames for more than 45 minutes before fire crews arrived to extinguish the blaze, protected by a line of police officers. By that time the building was reduced to charred rubble next to a gas station.

Other demonstrators marched onto Interstate-75, stopping traffic, before police used a line of squad cars to hold them back.

“I do not believe that this was a justified use of deadly force and have called for the immediate termination of the officer,” Bottoms said at an afternoon news conference.

Authorities have not yet released the names of the two officers involved in the shooting, both of whom were white.

Brooks was the father of a young daughter who was celebrating her birthday on Saturday, his lawyers said. His death from a police bullet came after more than two weeks of demonstrations in major cities across the United States in the name of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who died on May 25 under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer.

Street protests broke out in Atlanta on Saturday near the scene of the shooting, with more than 100 people calling for the officers to be charged criminally in the case.

Police were called to the Wendy’s over reports that Brooks had fallen asleep in the drive-thru line. Officers attempted to take him into custody after he failed a field sobriety test, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Video shot by a bystander captures Brooks struggling with two officers on the ground outside the Wendy’s before breaking free and running across the parking lot with what appears to be a police TASER in his hand.

A second videotape from the restaurant’s cameras shows Brooks turning as he runs and possibly aiming the TASER at the pursuing officers before one of them fires his gun and Brooks falls to the ground.

Brooks ran the length of about six cars when he turned back toward an officer and pointed what he had in his hand at the policeman, said Vic Reynolds, director of the GBI at a separate press conference.

“At that point, the Atlanta officer reaches down and retrieves his weapon from his holster, discharges it, strikes Mr. Brooks there on the parking lot and he goes down,” Reynolds said.

Lawyers representing the family of Brooks told reporters that Atlanta police had no right to use deadly force even if he had fired the TASER, a non-lethal weapon, in their direction.

“You can’t shoot somebody unless they are pointing a gun at you,” attorney Chris Stewart said.

Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard, Jr., said in an emailed statement that his office “has already launched an intense, independent investigation of the incident” while it awaits the findings of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Bottoms said Shields, a white woman appointed chief in December 2016, would be replaced by deputy chief Rodney Bryant, a black man who will serve as interim chief.

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(Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Saturday reported 2,038,344 cases of the new coronavirus, an increase of 22,317 cases from its previous count, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 711 to 114,625.

The CDC reported its tally of cases of the respiratory illness known as COVID-19, caused by the novel coronavirus, as of 4 pm ET on June 12 versus its previous report on Friday.(bit.ly/2UkMHx9)

The CDC figures do not necessarily reflect cases reported by individual states.

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