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(Reuters) &#8211; Americans debated mask mandates and the reopening of schools during the coronavirus pandemic on Friday as state and local officials imposed conflicting orders and cases rose by more than 70,000 across the nation for the second day in a row.



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The United States recorded a total of at least 70,674 new COVID-19 infections on Friday after climbing by a record 77,499 a day earlier, the largest increase posted by any country since the pandemic started, according to a Reuters tally.



U.S. deaths on Friday rose by at least 912, the fourth day in a row that fatalities have exceeded 900 a day.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">RELATED COVERAGE</h4>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-trump/trump-says-he-will-not-consider-a-national-mask-mandate-idUSKCN24I2WH">Trump says he will not consider a national mask mandate</a></li></ul>



In the state of Georgia, Governor Brian Kemp sued Atlanta’s mayor to prevent her from mandating masks.



Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced a plan to offer both in-person and remote instruction at the nation’s third-largest school district, over the objection of the teachers’ union, which wants remote learning only.



Americans have become divided along political lines over mask orders, with conservatives more likely than liberals to call the rules a violation of their Constitutional rights.



“Everybody saying that (wearing a mask) is a violation of their freedom &#8211; no, it’s not. Because a seatbelt is mandated and that’s to save your life,” said Sharon Taylor, 48, a cardiothoracic nurse in Atlanta.



With school set to resume in a few weeks, local officials across the country have announced a variety of plans to resume teaching.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">TRUMP SAYS WON’T ORDER MASKS</h3>



California Governor Gavin Newsom, who until now has allowed school districts in the nation’s most populous state to set their own policies, said on Friday schools could reopen only in counties that for 14 days have stayed off a worsening trends watch list.



As of Friday, 30 of the state’s 58 counties were on the list and schools there must remain closed. Among them are Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Diego counties, accounting for nearly 40% of the state’s population.



The United States has been averaging about 60,000 cases a day in July with cases rising in 41 states on Friday, based on a Reuters analysis. Texas and Arkansas reported a record number of deaths on Friday, while Kansas, Ohio, North Dakota and Puerto Rico reported record numbers of infections.



President Donald Trump has urged a return to normal, stressing the importance of reigniting the economy. The Trump administration and some health experts argue children are better off in classrooms for their development, and also to allow parents to return to work.



Trump told Fox News on Friday he did not believe in implementing a national mask mandate.



Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease specialist, urged political leaders to “be as forceful as possible in getting your citizenry to wear masks.”



Miami Beach, Florida imposed an 8 p.m. curfew in its entertainment district after social media posts showed maskless revelers crammed into restaurant patios.



Oklahoma City’s council voted in favor of an indoor mask requirement in the absence of a statewide face-covering mandate.



In Georgia, Kemp &#8211; a Republican and Trump supporter &#8211; urged all Georgians to wear masks for at least four weeks but said mandates were unenforceable and suggested they would hobble the economy.Slideshow&nbsp;(3 Images)



“Brian Kemp does the bidding of President Trump,” Atlanta’s Democratic Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who has tested positive for the coronavirus, told CNN on Friday.



Louis Charles, 68, of Atlanta, sided with the mayor on Friday as he wore a mask, all alone, sorting through his mail outside a post office.



“It’s wrong,” Charles said. “The mayor is trying to help people. This is a pandemic. How much worse does he want it?”



Reporting by Daniel Trotta, Peter Szekely, Rich McKay, Lisa Lambert, Lisa Shumaker, Maria Caspani, Gabriella Borter, Andrew Hay, Liza Feria, Brendan O&#8217;Brien and Dan Whitcomb; Writing by Daniel Trotta and Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Rosalba O&#8217;Brien, Cynthia Osterman and Lincoln Feast.

20200715_192019

U.S. divided over masks, schools as coronavirus cases rise by over 70,000 again

WASHINGTON (Reuters) &#8211; John Lewis, who died on Friday at age 80, was a hero of the U.S. civil rights movement of the 1960s who endured beatings by white police and mobs and played an outsized role in American politics for 60 years.



Lewis, an Alabama sharecropper’s son elected in 1986 as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia, died after a battle with pancreatic cancer.



A protege of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., Lewis led sit-ins to integrate all-white lunch counters, was one of the original “Freedom Riders” who integrated buses, and suffered a skull fracture while demonstrating for Black voting rights in a savage beating by a nightstick-wielding white Alabama state trooper during an incident now called “Bloody Sunday.”



Lewis was just 18 when he first met King and went on to play a vital role in the civil rights movement that strove for equality for Blacks in an America grappling with racial bigotry and segregation, particularly in the South.



As a congressman, Lewis tangled with President Donald Trump starting even before Trump took office. Lewis in January 2017 said he did not view Trump as a “legitimate” president because of Russian meddling in the 2016 election to boost his candidacy. Trump drew criticism even from fellow Republicans when he called Lewis “all talk” and “no action.”



Lewis was present at many of the civil rights movement’s seminal moments, and was the youngest speaker at the 1963 March on Washington where Martin Luther King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech, hoping for a land where Blacks “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”



Lewis, the last surviving speaker at that speech, maintained the fight for civil rights until the end of his life. He made his last public appearance in June, as protests for racial justice swept the United States and the world.



Using a cane, he walked with Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser on a street by the White House that Bowser had just renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza, which had just been dedicated with a large yellow mural &#8211; large enough to be seen from space &#8211; reading “Black Lives Matter.”



Amid a national movement to abolish Confederate monuments and symbols, calls have grown rename the bridge in Selma, Alabama, where Lewis was brutally beaten during a 1965 voting rights march, for Lewis. It is named for Edmund Pettus, who fought in the Confederate Army and robbed African-Americans of their right to vote after Reconstruction.



Long before the March on Washington, Lewis helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which became a prominent civil rights group, and served as its president for three years.



He proved he was willing to risk his life for the cause of civil rights and non-violent protest and organized the first lunch-counter sit-ins demanding service for Blacks at whites-only eateries.



In 1960, at a whites-only diner in Nashville, Tennessee, a white waitress dumped cleaning powder down his back and water on his food. He was beaten by whites in South Carolina and Alabama during 1961 anti-segregation bus tours called Freedom Rides. And he suffered further injuries during “Bloody Sunday” in 1965 in Selma.



“I thought I was going to die a few times,” he said in a 2004 interview, mentioning Selma and a 1961 mob beating at a bus station in Montgomery, Alabama. “I thought I saw death, but nothing can make me question the philosophy of non-violence.”



Barack Obama, the first Black U.S. president, awarded Lewis the presidential medal of freedom, America’s highest civilian honor, in 2011.



“Generations from now, when parents teach their children what is meant by courage, the story of John Lewis will come to mind &#8211; an American who knew that change could not wait for some other person or some other time, whose life is a lesson in the fierce urgency of now,” Obama said a White House ceremony.



Lewis was born on Feb. 21, 1940, in Troy, Alabama, when Blacks faced segregation in all public facilities and were effectively barred from voting in the U.S. South &#8211; where Black slavery ended only due to the 1861-1865 Civil War &#8211; thanks to the notorious “Jim Crow” laws.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">‘I FELT SO FREE’</h3>



Lewis plunged into the civil rights movement as a student at Fisk University in Nashville, where he organized the sit-ins at segregated lunch counters.



“The Nashville sit-ins became the first mass arrest in the sit-in movement, and I was taken to jail,” Lewis said.



“I’ll tell you, I felt so liberated. I felt so free. I felt like I had crossed over. I think I said to myself, ‘What else can you do to me? You beat me. You harassed me. Now you have placed me under arrest. You put us in jail. What’s left? You can kill us?’”



The “Bloody Sunday” attack took place when segregationist Alabama Governor George Wallace directed police to use night sticks and tear gas to stop the peaceful march for voting rights led by Lewis and others.



As hundreds of Black protesters crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, state troopers, many on horseback, waded into the crowd swinging billy clubs. Lewis was beaten so badly that his scars were visible decades later when he served in Congress.



The horrific nature of the event inspired action in Washington. President Lyndon Johnson days later demanded that Congress approve legislation removing barriers to Black voting. Lawmakers then passed the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965.



In a moving postscript to his protest years, Elwin Wilson, a white man who assaulted Lewis at a bus station in Rock Hill, South Carolina, in 1961, traveled to Washington in 2009 to apologize tearfully to Lewis, who forgave him.



“That’s what the movement was always about &#8211; to have the capacity to forgive and move toward reconciliation,” Lewis told the New York Times in 2013 after Wilson died at age 76.



After leaving SNCC in 1966, Lewis worked for community organizations. He later was Democratic President Jimmy Carter’s choice to head the federal volunteer program ACTION and he was elected to the Atlanta City Council in 1981.



Lewis lost his first run for the House in 1977 to Democrat Wyche Fowler in the campaign to replace Andrew Young, the first Black elected to Congress from Georgia in modern times. Carter had picked Young to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.



When Fowler headed to the Senate, Lewis defeated another civil rights figure, Julian Bond, in 1986 for the House seat representing the congressional district encompassing Atlanta.



In the House, he amassed a liberal voting record and was a member of the House Democratic leadership team.



Lewis began the 2008 campaign supporting Hillary Clinton as she faced Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination. After Obama won Georgia’s Democratic primary, Lewis switched allegiance in a key moment of the campaign.



As a congressman in June 2016, Lewis used the non-violent protest tactics he learned from King to help organize a 24-hour sit-in on the House floor to push for gun control legislation following a shooting that killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The rare protest virtually shut down the chamber.



Lewis had one son with his wife Lillian, who died in 2012.

Politicians on the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington

John Lewis, U.S. congressman and sharecropper’s son, was civil rights hero

WASHINGTON (Reuters) &#8211; The government of India has agreed to allow U.S. air carriers to resume passenger services in the U.S.-India market starting July 23, the U.S. Transportation Department said on Friday.



The Indian government, citing the coronavirus, had banned all scheduled services, prompting the U.S. Transportation Department in June to accuse India of engaging in “unfair and discriminatory practices” on charter air carriers serving India.



The Transportation Department said it was withdrawing an order it had issued requiring Indian air carriers to apply for authorization prior to conducting charter flights, and said it had approved an Air India application for passenger charter flights between the United States and India.&nbsp;



A group representing major U.S. airlines and the Indian Embassy in Washington did not immediately comment on Friday.



India’s Ministry of Civil Aviation said on Twitter it was moving to “further expand our international civil aviation operations” and arrangements from some flights “with US, UAE, France &amp; Germany are being put in place while similar arrangements are also being worked out with several other countries.”



“Under this arrangement,” it added, “airlines from the concerned countries will be able to operate flights from &amp; to India along with Indian carriers.”



The U.S. Transportation Department order was set to take effect next week. The Trump administration said in June it wanted “to restore a level playing field for U.S. airlines” under the U.S.-India Air Transport Agreement. The Indian government had banned all scheduled services and failed to approve U.S. carriers for charter operations, it added.



The U.S. government said in June that Air India had been operating “repatriation” charter flights between India and the United States in both directions since May 7.

U.S. passenger flights to India can resume July 23

Here’s What Vacations Look Like During A Pandemic

LONDON (Reuters) &#8211; Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he hoped Britain could return to normality before Christmas, setting out a phased removal of lockdown restrictions, but warned that while he was hoping for the best, the country must also prepare for the worst.



Britain is the worst-affected country in Europe by COVID-19 with a death toll from confirmed cases of more than 45,000 but has begun to lift national lockdown restrictions as case numbers and infection rates fall.



Johnson set out the latest timetable for easing on Friday, saying that employers would be given more discretion over working from home, that larger gatherings would be tested for safety and social distancing rules might be dropped in time for Christmas.



“It is my strong and sincere hope that we will be able to review the outstanding restrictions and allow a more significant return to normality from November at the earliest – possibly in time for Christmas,” he said.



However, he stressed that the plan was conditional on success in keeping infection rates down, setting out new powers for local government to lockdown COVID-19 hotspots and extra healthcare funding.



“We’re making sure we’re ready for winter and planning for the worst. But even as we plan for the worst, I strongly believe we should also hope for the best,” he told a news conference.



The government has faced criticism over several different aspects of its response to the pandemic, including that it was too slow to impose a lockdown and failed to ramp up testing capacity quickly enough.



Johnson said that from Aug. 1 he would scrap official guidance that encouraged people to work from home and give employers the power to decide whether it was safe for workers to return.



Johnson also set out a 3 billion pound ($3.76 billion) cash boost for the state-funded health system which would be made available immediately, and permitted the use of private hospitals and temporary field hospitals would be permitted to ease the increased winter burden.



The funding announcement applies only to the English health service, with knock-on increases for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to be set out later.



The government will also increase testing capacity and flexibility, bolster its stockpiles of protective equipment and, wary of increased pressure from other seasonal illnesses, increase its annual flu vaccination programme.

london

Britain eyes normal life by Christmas, but preparing for second COVID-19 wave

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BEIJING (Reuters) &#8211; China said on Thursday it will stick to the Phase 1 trade deal it reached with the United States earlier this year but warned that it will respond to “bullying” tactics from Washington, as relations continue to deteriorate.



Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying also invited U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to come to China and visit the western Xinjiang region to see that there are no human rights violations, responding to Washington’s sanctions and accusations of wrongdoing against the Uighur Muslim minorities who live there.



Relations between Beijing and Washington are at the worst in decades as the two countries clash on multiple fronts including China’s handling of the COVID-19 outbreak, the new national security law in Hong Kong, trade and the accusations of human rights crimes in Xinjiang.



Washington on Tuesday removed special status designation for Hong Kong and imposed sanctions against top Chinese officials and companies over Hong Kong and Xinjiang. Beijing condemned the moves and vowed to retaliate.



The New York Times reported that the United States is considering a travel ban against all members of China’s ruling Communist Party, a move that will further strain an increasingly confrontational relationship.



Hua told reporters during a daily briefing that such a ban, if true, would be “pathetic.”



Asked whether the recent sanctions imposed by Washington will impact the trade deal, Hua told reporters that China hopes the agreement can still be implemented.



“We always implement our commitments but we know that some in the U.S. are oppressing China and bullying China,” she said. “As an independent sovereign state China must respond to the bullying practices by the U.S. side; we must say no, we must make responses and take reactive moves to it.”



Hua also called Washington’s accusations of human rights crimes against the Uighur minorities the “biggest lies of the century”.



“We welcome him (Pompeo) to travel to our country and see what the Xinjiang people’s view of him is,” she said. “I could introduce him to some Uighur friends.”

china

China says will stick with U.S. trade deal, but respond to ‘bullying’

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LONDON (Reuters) &#8211; Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered Huawei equipment to be purged completely from Britain’s 5G network by the end of 2027, risking the ire of China by signalling that the world’s biggest telecoms equipment maker is not welcome in the West.



As Britain prepares to cast off from the European Union, fears over the security of Huawei have forced Johnson to choose between global rivals the United States and China.



He had been under intense pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, while Beijing had warned London, which has sought to court China in recent years, that billions in investment would be at risk if it sided with Washington.



Reversing a January decision to allow Huawei to supply up to 35% of the non-core 5G network, Johnson banned British telecoms operators from buying any 5G equipment from Huawei by year-end and gave them seven years to rip out existing gear.



“This has not been an easy decision, but it is the right one for the UK telecoms networks, for our national security and our economy, both now and indeed in the long run,” digital minister Oliver Dowden told parliament.



“By the time of the next election, we will have implemented in law an irreversible path for the complete removal of Huawei equipment from our 5G networks”.



The reason given for the about-turn was the impact of new U.S. sanctions on chip technology, which Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre, part of the GCHQ eavesdropping agency, had told ministers meant Huawei was not a reliable supplier.



White House National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien said Britain’s action reflected a growing consensus that Huawei and other untrusted vendors posed a threat to national security because they remained “beholden to the Chinese Communist Party”.



According to a law introduced in 2017 under Chinese President Xi Jinping, Chinese companies have an obligation to support and cooperate in China’s national intelligence work.



China’s ambassador to Britain Liu Xiaoming called the decision “disappointing and wrong”.Huawei logo is pictured on the headquarters building in Reading, Britain July 14, 2020. REUTERS/Matthew Childs



“It has become questionable whether the UK can provide an open, fair and non-discriminatory business environment for companies from other countries,” he said.



The ban will delay the roll-out of 5G &#8211; cast as the nervous system of the future economy &#8211; by two to three years, and add costs of up to 2 billion pounds ($2.5 billion).



The Dec. 31, 2027 deadline was not as bad as British telecoms operators such as BT (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/BT.L">BT.L</a>), Vodafone (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/VOD.L">VOD.L</a>) and Three (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/0215.HK">0215.HK</a>) had feared. They were concerned that they would be forced to spend billions of pounds to rip out Huawei equipment much faster.



BT said 500 million pounds already earmarked to comply with the earlier cap would cover its costs. Its shares closed up 4%.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">5G PROXY WAR?</h2>



Hanging up on Huawei marks an end to what former Prime Minister David Cameron cast as a “golden era” of ties which saw Britain pushed as Europe’s top destination for Chinese capital.



But London has been dismayed by a crackdown in Hong Kong and the perception China did not tell the whole truth over the novel coronavirus outbreak.



Huawei said the decision was more about U.S. trade policy than security. “It threatens to move Britain into the digital slow lane, push up bills and deepen the digital divide,” a spokesman said.Slideshow&nbsp;(3 Images)



In what some have compared to the Cold War antagonism with the Soviet Union, the United States is worried that 5G dominance could lead towards Chinese technological supremacy.



After Australia first raised alarms about the risk of 5G being hijacked by a hostile state, worries in the West about Huawei have mounted.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/huawei-usa-campaign">here</a>



The United States calls the company an agent of the Chinese Communist state &#8211; a view widely supported in Johnson’s Conservative Party. Huawei denies it spies for China and says the United States wants to frustrate its growth because no U.S. company offers the same technology at a competitive price.



In a tweet, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the British decision “advances Transatlantic security in the #5G era while protecting citizens’ privacy, national security, and free-world values.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">HUAWEI ALTERNATIVE?</h2>



British ministers say the rise to global dominance of Huawei, founded in 1987 by a former People’s Liberation Army engineer, has caught the West off-guard.



Dowden said Britain was working with its allies to foster stronger rivals to Huawei, naming firms from Finland, Sweden, South Korea and Japan.



“The first thing we need to do is ensure that we protect the other two vendors in this market, so Nokia (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/NOKIA.HE">NOKIA.HE</a>), and Ericsson (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/ERICb.ST">ERICb.ST</a>),” Dowden said. “Secondly we need to get new suppliers in, that starts with Samsung (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/005930.KS">005930.KS</a>), and it starts with NEC (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/6701.T">6701.T</a>).”



Nokia and Ericsson said they stood ready to replace Huawei gear.



By allowing Huawei’s equipment to remain in the 5G network until end-2027 and in older mobile networks, Johnson stopped short of demands from some lawmakers for a ban in four years.



Chinese imports to Britain doubled in the 15 years to 2018, to about 9% of all goods imported, worth 43 billion pounds.

The Tories have it – Boris Johnson returns to power with a stronger Brexit mandate

UK to purge Huawei from 5G by end of 2027, siding with Trump over China

BRUSSELS (Reuters) &#8211; Aspen (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/APNJ.J">APNJ.J</a>) has offered to cut prices by an average of 73% for six off-patent cancer drugs, EU antitrust regulators said on Tuesday, a move that could help the South African pharmaceutical company avoid a potentially hefty fine.



The European Commission opened an investigation into Aspen in 2017 following concerns it may have charged excessive prices for drugs critical in treating patients suffering from certain types of life-threatening cancer, such as leukaemia and multiple myeloma.



Aspen’s price cuts will cover all of Europe except for Italy, which imposed a five million euro ($5.68 million) fine on the company in 2016 for price hikes of up to 1,500% for some drugs.



The European Commission, the EU executive, said it would seek feedback from interested parties before deciding whether to accept the company’s offer.



“The proposed commitments aim at bringing to an end Aspen’s suspected excessive pricing conduct with respect to its six off-patent cancer medicines, which the Commission suspects to constitute an abuse of a dominant position,” the Commission said in a statement.



It said Aspen’s proposal would lead to an immediate price cut in its net prices to below 2012 levels for most of the drugs, guarantee supply and involve a 10-year price ceiling.



The price cuts would apply retroactively from Oct. 1, 2019, when Aspen first submitted its concessions to regulators.



Under its antitrust settlement procedures, accepting the offer would mean no fines and no acknowledgement of wrongdoing. Sanctions can amount to 10% of a company’s global turnover.

Stephen Saad on the impact of COVID-19 on Aspen

Aspen offers to cut cancer drug prices, may avoid EU antitrust fine

LONDON (Reuters) &#8211; Britain’s economy could shrink by more than 14% this year and government borrowing risks approaching 400 billion pounds ($500 billion) if there is lasting damage from the coronavirus, government budget forecasters warned on Tuesday.



The Office for Budget Responsibility said its central scenario, with only moderate scarring, showed a 12.4% fall in output, with a 14.3% decline if scarring is deeper.



Under an ‘upside scenario’ &#8211; which it said was an update of the sole scenario it presented in April &#8211; output would fall by 10.6%, while government borrowing would be limited to 263 billion pounds.

UK economy risks shrinking 14% this year, budget forecasters warn

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LONDON (Reuters) &#8211; Around 200 people employed to pick crops at a farm near Malvern in England’s West Midlands region have been told to self isolate after 73 of them tested positive for COVID-19, Public Health England (PHE) and Herefordshire Council said on Sunday.



The number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases across Britain each day has been falling from a peak of more than 6,000 in April to 650 in the latest figures released on Sunday, despite wider availability of testing.



However, there have been local outbreaks, with a significant number linked to meat packing plants.



The AS Green and Co farm site has been placed in lockdown to try to contain the outbreak, which follows other clusters of cases at food producers, PHE and Herefordshire Council said.



During the harvest season, workers who pick and pack vegetables, live in mobile homes based on the farm.



Katie Spence, PHE Midlands Health Protection Director, said the company had put infection control measures in place to try to reduce the risk of staff becoming exposed to COVID-19.



“Despite these measures, a small number of workers became symptomatic earlier this week and they and a few close contacts among the workforce were tested initially and found to be positive,” she said.



“As we have seen a global trend of large food producers being subject to outbreaks, as a precautionary measure, the decision was made to test the entire workforce.”



She said the initial results showed a significant percentage of positive cases, despite the individuals being asymptomatic.

malvern

More than 70 workers test positive for COVID-19 on an English farm

Reuters) &#8211; Tesla Inc (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/TSLA.O">TSLA.O</a>) cut the price of its sport utility vehicle Model Y by $3,000, just four months after its launch, as the U.S. electric carmaker seeks to maintain sales momentum in the COVID-19 pandemic.



The reduction follows price cuts in May on Tesla’s Model 3, Model X and Model S.



The company headed by Elon Musk this month posted a smaller-than-expected fall in car deliveries in the second quarter, resilient results despite the pandemic that hit the global auto industry.



The Model Y now starts at $49,990, down nearly 6% from its previous price of $52,990, according to the carmaker’s website.









Tesla did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.



The company started deliveries of the Model Y in March, promising a much-awaited crossover that will face competition from European carmakers like Volkswagen AG (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/VOWG_p.DE">VOWG_p.DE</a>) rolling out their own electric rivals.



In April, Tesla had said the Model Y was already profitable, marking the first time in the company’s 17-year history that one of its new vehicles turned a profit in its first quarter.

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(Reuters) &#8211; New cases of COVID-19 rose by over 69,000 across the United States on Friday, according to a Reuters tally, setting a record for the third consecutive day as Walt Disney Co stuck to its plans to reopen its flagship theme park in hard-hit Florida.



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A total of nine U.S. states &#8211; Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Ohio, Utah and Wisconsin &#8211; also reached records for single-day infections.



In Texas, another hot zone, Governor Greg Abbott warned on Friday he may have to impose new clampdowns if the state cannot stem its record-setting caseloads and hospitalizations through masks and social distancing.



“If we don’t adopt this best practice it could lead to a shutdown of business,” the Republican governor told local KLBK-TV in Lubbock, adding it was the last thing he wanted.



California announced on Friday the state will release up to 8,000 inmates early from prisons to slow the spread of COVID-19 inside the facilities. At San Quentin State Prison, outside San Francisco, half of the facility’s roughly 3,300 prisoners have tested positive for the virus.



The Walt Disney Co (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/DIS.N">DIS.N</a>) said the theme parks in Orlando would open on Saturday to a limited number of guests who along with employees would be required to wear masks and undergo temperature checks. The park also cancelled parades, firework displays and events that typically draw crowds.



Disney’s chief medical officer said earlier this week she believed the rules would allow guests to visit the park safely.



Roughly 19,000 people, including some theme park workers, have signed a petition asking Disney to delay the reopening. The union representing 750 Walt Disney World performers has filed a grievance against the company, claiming retaliation against members over a union demand that they be tested for COVID-19.



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Sun seekers gather at Clearwater Beach, which remains open despite high numbers of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infections in the state, on Independence Day in Clearwater, Florida, U.S. July 4, 2020. REUTERS/Drone Base



Other theme parks opened in Orlando in June, including Comcast Corp’s (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/CMCSA.O">CMCSA.O</a>) Universal Studios Orlando and SeaWorld Entertainment Inc’s (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/SEAS.N">SEAS.N</a>) SeaWorld.



Florida remains one of the worst hotspots for the virus in the nation and is among a handful of states where deaths are rising, based on a Reuters analysis of fatalities in the last two weeks, compared with the prior two weeks.



On Thursday, the state reported a record 120 deaths and added another 92 on Friday. It recorded 11,433 new coronavirus cases on Friday, just short of the state’s record, and nearly 7,000 hospitalizations.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">ANTIVIRAL DRUG TO FLORIDA</h3>



More than four dozen hospitals in Florida have reported their intensive care units were full.



This month, Florida has repeatedly reported more new daily coronavirus cases than any European country had at the height of their outbreaks. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, angered some residents and medical experts by calling the spike a “blip”.



On Friday, DeSantis said that the state would receive more than 17,000 vials of the antiviral drug remdesivir from the U.S. government, adding: “That’ll be something that will hopefully help to improve patient outcomes.”



Scott Burkee, a 43-year-old former Disney employee from Davenport, Florida, said DeSantis “has shown zero effort to control the spread, he only becomes concerned when Trump does. The virus is clearly out of control.”



Trump, a Republican, traveled to Florida on Friday for an event at the U.S. military’s Southern Command and a campaign fundraiser.



The president has sparred with state and local officials and teachers unions over the reopening of schools and said on Friday the Treasury Department would re-examine the tax-exempt status and funding of those that remain closed.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://s4.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&amp;d=20200710&amp;t=2&amp;i=1525329576&amp;r=LYNXMPEG691L9" alt=""/></figure>



FILE PHOTO: Crowds walk along Main Street toward Cinderella Castle and Tomorrowland at Disney&#8217;s Magic Kingdom on the final day before closing in an effort to combat the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in an aerial view in Orlando, Florida, U.S. March 15, 2020. Picture taken March 15, 2020. REUTERS/Gregg Newton



Trump previously vowed to cut federal funding to the schools and eject foreign students attending universities in the United States unless their schools offer in-person classes. Most education funds come from state and local coffers.



The number of confirmed U.S. infections is over 3 million, according to a Reuters tally, stoking fears that hospitals will be overwhelmed.



Nearly 134,000 Americans have died, a toll that experts warn will likely surge along with the rise in cases.



Overall, coronavirus cases are rising in 44 American states, based on a Reuters analysis of cases for the past two weeks compared with the prior two weeks.

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