Vote-by-mail ballots for the August 4 Washington state primary are pictured at King County Elections in Renton, Washington on August 3, 2020. (Photo: Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images)

President Donald Trump ramped up his baseless attacks on mail-in voting late Monday by threatening to issue an executive order curbing the practice ahead of the November elections, a move rights groups and experts said would be a flagrant violation of the U.S. Constitution.

"I have the right to do it," Trump said during a Covid-19 press briefing Monday evening. "We haven't gotten there yet, but we'll see what happens."

"No, he doesn't," responded attorney Daniel Jacobson. "As the Supreme Court has explained: 'the Framers of the Constitution intended the States to keep for themselves, as provided in the Tenth Amendment, the power to regulate elections.'"...

The leader of the 200,000-member American Postal Workers Union warned Monday that President Donald Trump's evidence-free attacks on mail-in voting, threat to delay the November election, and ongoing efforts to undermine the U.S. Postal Service are putting the nation on "a dangerous path toward dictatorship" and must be opposed.

"President Donald Trump's raising postponement of the upcoming November presidential election has been rightly and quickly rejected by political leaders in both major parties," APWU President Mark Dimondstein said in a statement Monday. "On behalf of the 200,000 APWU postal workers and retirees, proud public servants of many political persuasions, I join in adding our voice in that chorus."

"During this pandemic, anyone who believes in the right to vote should enthusiastically embrace voting by mail. Without it, tens of millions of voters will be denied the opportunity to safely exercise their cherished right to vote," Dimondstein continued. "When postal workers go to work every day, our commitment is not to politicians or political parties, it's to the people in every community across this country who we are proud to serve in this election season and for years to come."

Dimonstein's statement came amid growing alarm among postal workers, lawmakers, and voting rights advocates over Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's recent policy changes that have resulted in significant mail backlogs and delays across the country—including in key battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. If the backlogs continue, postal workers warn the USPS may struggle to deliver mail-in ballots on time....

....The Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, is seeking eight years of the Republican president’s personal and corporate tax records, but has disclosed little about what prompted him to request the records, other than part of the investigation relates to payoffs to women to silence them about alleged affairs with Trump in the past....

China’s diplomats say vaccines developed in China will be a “global public good”. Photo: AFP

China’s so-called Wolf Warrior diplomats have been in the spotlight this year as Beijing barked back at critics who blamed it for the Covid-19 outbreak. But that narrative may be about to shift as China positions itself as a global leader to fight the disease, saying it will offer loans and priority access for vaccines it is developing.

Vaccines being developed in China are among front-runners in the hunt for safe and effective immunisations to counter the pandemic. China’s diplomats are saying, if successful, the vaccines will be a “global public good”, a pledge made by President Xi Jinping at a meeting of the World Health Organisation’s governing body in May.

The assurances come as multiple vaccines worldwide move into large-scale late-phase trials, a step away from potential approval. However, supply shortages for any approved products are likely to persist for months or even years due to manufacturing constraints....

That has seen richer countries, including the United States, Britain, and Japan, cut deals with pharmaceutical developers for early doses for their own citizens.

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro answers media questions on July 29. Navarro is among those in Trump’s inner circle touting hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the coronavirus, even though the Food and Drug Administration has determined that it is unlikely to be effective. Photo EPA-EFE

“This president led on the development of remdesivir,” White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters on July 31. And nary a mention of hydroxychloroquine.

In the months of distraction and misinformation from the White House about all aspects of the pandemic since Donald Trump banished respected health authorities like Dr Anthony Fauci, this one was a shocker.

To Trump and his supporters, hydroxychloroquine was our way out of a pandemic that has now killed more than 150,000 Americans, to the stubborn exclusion of everything else that health authorities have been pleading for, including face masks and social distancing.

Trump, his son Donald Jnr, and many others within the president’s hardcore base, apparently preferred the solutions on offer by Stella Immanuel, a registered doctor in Texas who insists, among other dubious claims, that hydroxychloroquine is a Covid-19 cure.

Earlier in the week, Trump retweeted a video of Immanuel – who is stridently anti-LGBTQ and occasionally spouts odd ideas such as the negative health implications of having dream sex with demons – speaking to the media as part of a group called America’s Frontline Doctors, all sporting lab coats, on the steps of the US Supreme Court....