USA

BOISE (Idaho, US), July 6 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Eight people are believed to be dead after two planes collided over Coeur d’Alene Lake in Idaho and then sank, Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Ryan Higgins said.

A call came in for two planes that had collided over the lake around 2:20 p.m., Higgins said Sunday.

Two victims, both deceased, were recovered from the air crafts before they sank, Higgins said. The remaining six victims – adults and children – are still unaccounted for but are believed to be dead.

CHICAGO, July 5 (Xinhua) -- At least 17 people were killed and 63 others injured in Chicago over the Independence Day holiday weekend as a result of gun violence.

The 17 killed included two children, one is a 7-year-old girl and the other a 14-year-old boy.

WASHINGTON, July 5 (Xinhua) -- Financial decoupling between the United States and China is "increasingly unlikely" despite the Trump administration's rhetoric, said Nicholas Lardy, senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based think tank Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE).

"For all the fireworks over tariffs and investment restrictions, China's integration into global financial markets continues apace," according to an analysis co-authored by Lardy and PIIE research analyst Tianlei Huang, published on Thursday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Forty lobbyists with ties to President Donald Trump helped clients secure more than $10 billion in federal coronavirus aid, among them five former administration officials whose work potentially violates Trump’s own ethics policy, according to a report.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue tromped through a strawberry festival in central Florida, detailing the government’s new trade pact. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo talked about foreign policy at a roundtable in south Florida. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler toured parts of Michigan and Wisconsin, where he boasted of the Trump administration’s efforts to clean up the Great Lakes.

ATLANTA (AP) — From Mississippi retiring its state flag to local governments removing Confederate statues from public spaces, a bipartisan push across the South is chipping away at reminders of the Civil War and Jim Crow segregation.

Now, during a national reckoning on racism, Democratic Party leaders want those symbolic changes to become part of a fundamental shift at the ballot box.

New York (AP) — Prosecutors on Sunday asked a judge to schedule a Friday court appearance in New York for Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime associate to face charges she helped him recruit women to sexually abuse.

British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, 58, was arrested Thursday at a $1 million estate on 156 acres that she purchased last December in Bradford, New Hampshire.

She has been detained without bail after agreeing to be moved to New York. Prosecutors have labeled her an “extreme risk of flight” and said they want her jailed until trial.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — A statue of abolitionist Frederick Douglass was ripped from its base in Rochester on the anniversary of one of his most famous speeches, delivered in that city in 1852.

Police said the statue of Douglass was taken on Sunday from Maplewood Park, a site along the Underground Railroad where Douglas and Harriet Tubman helped shuttle slaves to freedom.

The statue was found at the brink of the Genesee River gorge about 50 feet from its pedestal, police said. There was damage to the base and a finger.

CHICAGO (AP) — A loose network of Facebook groups that took root across the country in April to organize protests over coronavirus stay-at-home orders has become a hub of misinformation and conspiracy theories that have pivoted to a variety of new targets. Their latest: Black Lives Matter and the nationwide protests of racial injustice.

These groups, which now boast a collective audience of more than 1 million members, are still thriving after most states started lifting virus restrictions.

And many have expanded their focus.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Not long after noon on Feb. 6, President Donald Trump strode into the elegant East Room of the White House. The night before, his impeachment trial had ended with acquittal in the Republican-controlled Senate. It was time to gloat and settle scores.

“It was evil,” Trump said of the attempt to end his presidency. “It was corrupt. It was dirty cops. It was leakers and liars.”