USA

(AP) --- Dr. Anthony Fauci warned Sunday that more “pain and suffering” is on the horizon as COVID-19 cases climb again and officials plead with unvaccinated Americans to get their shots.

Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, also said he doesn’t foresee additional lockdowns in the U.S. because he believes enough people are vaccinated to avoid a recurrence of last winter. However, he said not enough are inoculated to “crush the outbreak” at this point.

WASHINGTON, Aug 1 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Tunisia should swiftly return to its “democratic path”, a top White House official on Saturday told President Kais Saied, days after his shock power grab that included suspending parliament.

In an hour-long call with Saied, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan noted support for “Tunisian democracy based on fundamental rights, strong institutions and a commitment to the rule of law”, according to a White House statement.

WASHINGTON, Aug 1 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Nearly 30 top US prosecutors had their office’s email accounts hacked during a major breach last year, the Justice Department says.

The attack on users of the software SolarWinds – which the US has blamed on Russia – was the worst-ever cyber-espionage attack on the US government.

The department says 27 US attorneys had at least one office computer hacked.

That has raised fears the hackers may have accessed sensitive information, including the names of informants.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Unable to produce the final text of a nearly $1 trillion infrastructure bill, the Senate wrapped up a rare Saturday session making little visible progress on the legislative package, but Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer vowed the work would get done.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Anger and frustration mounted in Congress as a nationwide eviction moratorium expired at midnight Saturday — one Democratic lawmaker even camping outside the Capitol in protest as millions of Americans faced being forced from their homes.

Lawmakers said they were blindsided by President Joe Biden’s inaction as the deadline neared, some furious that he called on Congress to provide a last-minute solution to protect renters. The rare division between the president and his party carried potential lasting political ramifications.

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Florida reported 21,683 new cases of COVID-19, the state’s highest one-day total since the start of the pandemic, according to federal health data released Saturday, as its theme park resorts again started asking visitors to wear masks indoors.

The state has become the new national epicenter for the virus, accounting for around a fifth of all new cases in the U.S. as the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus continues to spread.

WASHINGTON, July 31 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The Delta variant of the coronavirus is as contagious as chickenpox, probably causes more severe disease, and breakthrough cases in vaccinated individuals may be as transmissible as unvaccinated cases, according to a leaked US government document.

   The internal slide presentation produced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stresses that “the war has changed” as a result of Delta.

WASHINGTON, July 30 (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department (DoJ) on Friday announced the seizure of a 2,734-ton tanker it said was owned and operated by a Singaporean national and used to make shipments of petroleum products to North Korea in violation of international sanctions.

A DoJ statement said the M/T Courageous was seized by Cambodian authorities in March 2020 in accordance with a U.S. warrant, having been used to transfer oil products to North Korean vessels and to make direct shipments to the North Korean port of Nampo.

NEW YORK, July 30 (Xinhua) -- The second phase of investigation into the origins of COVID-19 planned by the World Health Organization (WHO) is seen as a potential campaign move by its current Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is running for a second five-year term, according to an article published in the U.S. newspaper Politico.

Many WHO member states in Geneva were surprised by Tedros' approach to further probing whether the virus leaked from a lab, said two diplomats who asked to remain anonymous, the article said.

NEW YORK, July 31 (Xinhua) -- The biggest threat to Western democracy comes from within, not China, said an article published by the Vox news site this week.

Blaming China for the reason why Western democracy is currently under threat is "not only wrong, but potentially dangerous," said the article.

One of the emerging tenets of U.S. President Joe Biden's administration is that the United States and China are locked in ideological confrontation over the fate of democracy, it said.