Pandemic: Florida reported more than 8,900 new coronavirus cases on Friday, another one day record as the state’s re-opening of bars, restaurants, beaches and public spaces backfires.

  Florida and Texas, with cases also rising, ordered all the bars closed. The Dow Jones swooned 730 points on the news of the virus resurgence. 

  This morning, the official number of coronavirus cases in the US is 2,467,837 with 125,039deaths. The infection rate has risen 52 percent over the last 14 days.

  Citing the spreading disease, a federal judge has ordered that all children currently held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody for more than 20 days must be released by July 17.

  At the first briefing in weeks by the coronavirus task force, the doctors Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci warned of the personal responsibility for curtailing the spread of the disease. 

  President Mike Pence, chair of the task force, declared that, “I want to proudly say of the entire federal team under the leadership of President Trump, we have made truly remarkable progress in moving our nation forward.” Seventy thousand people have died since he last held a briefing.

  Shortly before walking out of the briefing, Pence defended the President’s revived political rallies, saying,  “The freedom of speech, the right to peaceably assemble is enshrined in the Constitution of the United States, and we have an election coming up this fall.”

  Most important to the Trump administration appears to be re-election. 

Under Insured: In the midst of a global pandemic in which many thousands of Americans have required complex hospital care, the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to void the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare. 

  Solicitor General Noel Francisco said that because Congress removed the penalty for being uninsured, the rest of the law collapses and should be declared unconstitutional.

  About 23 million people are insured through Obamacare. President Trump ran for office in 2016 promising he would replace it with “something fantastic” and has produced nothing. His administration is joining a group of red states led by Texas in the effort to kill Obamacare, just as Texas intensive care beds are filling with coronavirus patients.

  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a statement saying, “President Trump and the Republicans’ campaign to rip away the protections and benefits of the Affordable Care Act in the middle of the coronavirus crisis is an act of unfathomable cruelty.”

Faceoff: Advertisers disappointed with Facebook’s efforts to curb misinformation, hate speech, and conspiracy theories are abandoning the platform. Eddie Bauer and Ben & Jerry’s lead a pack that now includes  Verizon, Unilever, Coca-Cola, Hershey’s, and Levi Strauss .

  Levi Strauss said in a statement, “We believe this inaction fuels racism and violence and also has the potential to threaten our democracy and the integrity of our elections.” 

  Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg has always  claimed that the site is a neutral forum and they are not in the business of editing. But he’s getting pushed into it now. He said,  “We’re expanding our ads policy to prohibit claims that people from a specific race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, gender identity or immigration status are a threat to the physical safety, health or survival of others.”

  He also said Facebook will label some content that violates policy while leaving it up as a matter of free speech and public discussion. 

The Bulletin Board: A New York judge has dismissed the Trump family lawsuit aimed at blocking release of the tell-all by the President’s niece, Mary Trump. The title; “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.” — A Judge ordered President Trump’s friend Roger Stone to report for prison July 14^th, denying his request for a delay because of the coronavirus pandemic. — Huey, the St. Louis rapper behind the hit “Pop, Lock & Drop It,” was shot and killed in a double shooting Thursday night in Kinloch, Missouri. He was 32. The 2006 song peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100. — Segway, the two-wheeled, gyroscope-balanced scooter that was supposed to change transportation when it was introduced in 2001, is ceasing production. 

The Obit Page: Thomas Blanton, the last of three members of the Ku Klux Klan convicted of killing four young girls in the 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, has died in prison at age 82.

The bombing was one of the most infamous acts of the civil rights era. The girls ages 11 to 14 died as they were putting on their choir robes for a Sunday service.

  Robert Chambliss was convicted 10 years after the bombing and died in prison in 1985. A fourth suspect, Herman Cash, died in 1994 having never been charged.

  Blanton and accomplice Bobby Frank Cherry were not arrested until the year 2000. Cherry died in prison in 2004.

The Darwin Report: Three people died in New Mexico and one is blinded by methanol poisoning after a drinking hand sanitizer. Three more are in critical condition.

  Even without drinking it, sanitizer containing methanol rather than alcohol can be dangerous. It can be absorbed through the skin.

Blowing in the Wind: A huge cloud of dust and sand blown from the Sahara desert is finally reaching the southeastern United States. What’s known as the Saharan Air Layer is a common event, but it doesn’t always reach this far.

 “The main impacts of the Saharan dust are a whitening of the sky during daylight hours, redder sunsets, and decreased air quality,” the National Weather Service said.

  Right now, anyway, it’s not the only cloud over Florida.