Costa Rica to start accepting tourists from UK, EU and Canada. Americans are not welcome.

American passports are pretty much worthless at this point.

Thanks, Trump.

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SAN JOSE, July 23 (Reuters) - Costa Rica will reopen two of its airports on Aug. 1 to tourists from the European Union, the United Kingdom and Canada, the government said on Thursday, even as it reported the highest daily number of coronavirus infections to date.

Tourism minister Gustavo Segura announced the reopening of the Juan Santamaria airport in San Jose and the Daniel Oduber airport in northeast Costa Rica, saying both had the sanitary procedures in place needed to resume operations after closing in March to order to help slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.

U.S. travelers, who made up nearly 40% of all visitors to Costa Rica last year, were not included in the list.

Segura said that British, European and Canadian tourists would only be allowed to enter the country after presenting negative COVID-19 test results, as well as travel insurance that would cover any potential quarantine or medical costs.

https://news.trust.org/item/20200723231639-ub8sl

Trump Ridiculed for Targeting 'The Suburban Housewives of America' in Latest Tweet

By Leia Idliby

President Donald Trump was ridiculed on Thursday for targeting “The Suburban Housewives of America” in his latest tweet — many pointing out that the term is archaic and that the word “women” would have sufficed.

The president took to Twitter to share a New York Post opinion piece on Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s “disastrous plans for America’s suburbs” and insisted that he would destroy suburban neighborhoods along with the “American Dream.”

“The Suburban Housewives of America must read this article. Biden will destroy your neighborhood and your American Dream,” the tweet read. “I will preserve it, and make it even better!”

Pundits, journalists, and fellow politicians quickly reacted to the president’s “condescending” choice of words. New York Times’ Maggie Haberman pointed out that “‘suburban women’ probably would have worked a bit better” while others reiterated that not all women are housewives.

https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-ridiculed-for-targeting-the-suburban-housewives-of-america-in-latest-tweet/

This is what Trump sees when he thinks of women in suburbia...

LOL! Mehdi Hasan grills former GOP rep Jack Kingston and it's comedy gold...

Al Jazeera host Mehdi Hasan and former Republican congressman Jack Kingston exploded into a bizarre debate during an interview this week over President Donald Trump’s comments about injecting disinfectant to combat the coronavirus.

“Back in April, he asked whether his scientists could look into injecting disinfectant into the human body to kill the coronavirus. One of the maddest things I’ve ever heard any politician say in my lifetime,” declared Hasan. “Even you, Jack, at that point must have said, ‘This guy shouldn’t be in charge of a bake sale, let alone a pandemic response.'”

“Actually, if you listen to that interview, he was talking about is there a way to internally digest a medicine that could cure,” responded Kingston, a former adviser to the Trump campaign. “Now frankly, you know, it’s thinking outside the box in a laboratory that comes up with great inventions, but you know, I can understand your discomfort with him saying that at a press conference.”

Hasan shot back, “You can understand it? I mean, he made himself a laughing stock. His own aides distances themselves from him. He said, ‘Is there a way we can do something like that’ — disinfectant — ‘by injection inside?’ He wanted to inject disinfectant into human beings. That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard any world leader say in my entire life.”

More with video: https://www.mediaite.com/politics/watch-bizarre-debate-explodes-after-jack-kingston-calls-trumps-comments-about-injecting-disinfectant-pretty-reasonable/

Damn: Canadian, American tour boats at Niagara Falls become symbol of COVID-19 contrast

TORONTO -- To some observers, a pair of tour boats at Canada’s landmark Niagara Falls have become a symbol for how the country’s COVID-19 response compares to the virus-ravaged United States.

It’s a tale of two countries as shown by capacity levels on board the Hornblower Cruise on the Canadian side of the falls, and the famed Maid of the Mist on the American side.

Images shared on social media of the two boats passing each other -- the American vessel carrying hundreds of guest while the Canadian watercraft holds just half a dozen -- have led some to point to the Maid of the Mist as proof of pandemic failures in the U.S.

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“Is looking at a big waterfall really worth risking your life and spreading a deadly virus?” wrote one Twitter user on Tuesday.

The United States has logged close to 3.9 million known cases of COVID-19 -- the most in the world -- while Canada has recorded 111,697 as of Tuesday evening. U.S. officials have faced criticism for not enforcing lockdown measures while countries like Canada have been able to keep new cases of the virus low. For many, the juxtaposed tour boats were a symbol of that North American contrast.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/canadian-american-tour-boats-at-niagara-falls-become-symbol-of-covid-19-contrast-1.5033837

U.S. reports over 1,000 daily coronavirus deaths for first time since May

Source: Axios

The U.S. reported more than 1,000 coronavirus-related deaths on Tuesday for the first time since May 29, according to the COVID-19 Tracking Project.

Deaths from COVID-19 had slowed after months of lockdowns, but they're starting to tick back up again as new infections and hospitalizations continue to surge across the country.

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The U.S. on Tuesday reported 63,000 new cases and 59,000 hospitalizations — the third-highest total number of hospitalizations in the COVID-19 Tracking Project's data set.


Read more: https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-deaths-thousand-may-a10e174a-9cdc-4148-93e1-dfe55c1f03e4.html

Trump on accused Epstein sex crimes accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell: 'I wish her well'

Source: CNBC

President Donald Trump on Tuesday offered kind words to Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite criminally charged with procuring underage girls to be sexually abused by late investor Jeffrey Epstein.

“I just wish her well, frankly,” Trump told reporters when asked at a press briefing on the coronavirus pandemic about Maxwell.

Maxwell, 58, last week was ordered held without bail in the case, where she is also charged with perjury.

One of her accusers was just 14 years old at the time Epstein allegedly sexually abused her.

Trump’s offer of well wishes to Maxwell, 58, came after a reporter asked him if “you feel that she’s going to turn in powerful men?”

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/21/trump-on-accused-epstein-sex-crimes-accomplice-ghislaine-maxwell-i-wish-her-well.html

Right wing blogger Michelle Malkin attacks Trump for tweeting an image of himself wearing a mask

Let the backlash begin!

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After months of sending mixed messages on the wearing face masks to stem the spread of coronavirus, President Trump finally fired off a tweet endorsing the practice, even calling it “patriotic.”

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While the tweet was met with skepticism and even some light praise from Trump’s critics on Twitter, far-right blogger and author Michelle Malkin made her displeasure with Trump pivot known.

“This is not patriotic,” she wrote, retweeting Trump’s message.

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/07/trump-is-not-patriotic-because-he-sent-a-tweet-wearing-a-coronavirus-mask-conservative-michelle-malkin/

NYT: GOP discussing redirecting money away from Trump to vulnerable Senate Republicans

President Trump’s weak poll numbers and a surge of Democratic cash flooding key Senate races have jolted top Republicans and intensified talk among party donors and strategists about redirecting money to protect their narrow Senate Republican majority amid growing fear of complete Democratic control of Washington in 2021.

Almost no one is talking openly about abandoning Mr. Trump at this point. A total collapse at the top of the ticket, Republican strategists and donors agree, would only make holding the Senate harder.

But maintaining the Senate is an imperative for the G.O.P.: A Democratic Senate could offer a glide path for liberal Supreme Court nominees from a President Biden, or block Mr. Trump’s judges if he won a second term. And right now, Senate Republican incumbents and candidates are losing badly in the money chase not just in the top Senate battlegrounds — states like Maine, Arizona, Colorado and North Carolina — but also in conservative states, such as Montana, where seats are now increasingly up for grabs.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/20/us/politics/trump-polls-senate.html

Trump is 'Discouraging Turnout' Among His OWN Voters By Sowing Doubt in Mail-In Voting

Trump: Many positive coronavirus cases shouldn't even be cases because young people heal in a day

With coronavirus cases rising across the country and the U.S. death toll topping 137,000, President Trump on Sunday dismissed concerns about the spike in infections, telling Fox News that “many of those cases shouldn’t even be cases.”

“Many of those cases are young people that would heal in a day,” the president told Fox News host Chris Wallace in an interview. “They have the sniffles and we put it down as a test.”

While young people make up an increasing share of new cases, the virus has affected people in all age groups. A surge of infections is driving deaths back up again after months of decline, and hospitals in hard-hit states such as Florida, Texas and Arizona are facing an influx of patients that health officials say could soon overwhelm medical systems. Nationwide, hospitalizations were on track to exceed their previous peak of roughly 60,000, reached in the pandemic’s early months.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/19/coronavirus-update-us/?hpid=hp_hp-banner-main_leadall-945am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans