USA

Washington, Jul 3 (PTI) China under President Xi Jinping has stepped up its "aggressive" foreign policy toward India and "resisted" efforts to clarify the Line of Actual Control that prevented a lasting peace from being realised, according to a report released by a US Congress appointed commission.

The armies of India and China have been locked in a bitter standoff at multiple locations in eastern Ladakh for the last seven weeks, and the tension escalated after 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a violent clash in the Galwan Valley on June 15.

WASHINGTON, July 2 (Xinhua) -- U.S. coronavirus cases rise by nearly 55,000 over the past 24 hours Thursday, a new one-day record surge, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

The national count of confirmed cases has surpassed 2.7 million to reach 2,735,554, with 128,684 deaths, according to the university's latest tally.

The southeastern U.S. state of Florida on Thursday also smashed the previous single-day record, reporting 10,109 new cases, according to the state's Department of Heath.

MIAMI (AP) — Three American defense contractors held for five years by leftist rebels in Colombia moved closer to collecting on a $318 million judgment against their former captors after a U.S. Supreme Court justice rebuffed a last-minute appeal by a sanctioned Venezuelan businessman whose assets they seek to claim.

SELMA, Ala. (AP) — Thousands gathered in this river city in 1940 to dedicate a new bridge in honor of white supremacist Edmund Pettus, a Confederate general and reputed Ku Klux Klan leader. Just 25 years later, the bridge became a global landmark when civil rights marchers were beaten at its base.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is denying Congress access to secret grand jury testimony from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation through the November election.

The justices agreed on Thursday to hear the Trump administration’s appeal of a lower court order for the material to be turned over to the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives. The high court’s action will keep the documents out of congressional hands at least until the case is resolved, which is not likely to happen before 2021.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A government watchdog says the Commerce Department is trying to block the findings of an investigation into the agency’s role in rebuking forecasters who contradicted President Donald Trump’s inaccurate claims about the path of Hurricane Dorian last year.

The accusation comes from Peggy Gustafson, the inspector general for the Commerce Department, who wrote a memo expressing “deep concern” that release of the report was being blocked.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The two top Democrats in Congress said Thursday that any threats to U.S. troops must be pursued “relentlessly,” rebuking President Donald Trump after receiving a highly classified briefing about intelligence that Russia offered bounties for killing U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The ousted former U.S. attorney for Manhattan will sit down with the House Judiciary Committee next week for a closed-door interview as the panel investigates politicization in the Justice Department.

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. economy just posted its best single-month job gain in history.

U.S. unemployment is at one of its worst points since the Great Depression.

Both are true.

As Republicans and Democrats fought to spin Thursday’s jobs numbers to their advantage, both sides face tremendous political risks in navigating a delicate and defining issue heading into the presidential campaign’s final months.

(AP) --- A white couple was arrested after at least one handgun was pulled on a Black woman and her daughters during a videotaped confrontation in a restaurant parking lot in Michigan, authorities said Thursday.

Jillian Wuestenberg, 32, and Eric Wuestenberg, 42, were charged Thursday with felonious assault, Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper said in a release. It was not immediately clear when they would be arraigned or if they have attorneys who could comment on the allegations.