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UNDATED (AP) — Stocks are higher in Asia after a report showed the U.S. job market is recovering from the wreckage of the coronavirus pandemic in the spring. Shanghai led regional gains on Friday, adding 1.3% and shares rose across the region. Overnight, the S&P 500 rose 0.5%, finishing the holiday-shortened week with a gain of 4%. Worries about the virus are still weighing on investors, however. Florida reported another sharp increase in confirmed cases, helping to cut the S&P 500's early gains by more than half. The bond market also showed continued caution.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House says President Donald Trump was never briefed on intelligence that Russia had put a bounty on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan because there wasn’t corroborating evidence. But former intelligence officials say presidents are routinely informed about intelligence even when it’s not definitively confirmed. They say it strains credulity to think Trump wouldn’t have been told of something so important, whether corroborated or not. Intelligence that may be on shaky ground today may foreshadow tomorrow’s calamity, so briefers are expected to ensure presidents have the fullest possible picture to prepare for something that may soon require full attention.
UNDATED (AP) — South Korea has reported 63 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 as health authorities scramble to mobilize public health tools to the southwestern city of Gwangju, where more than 50 people were found sickened over the past week. The figures announced by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday brought the national caseload to 12,967 infections, including 282 deaths. Thirty-one of the new cases were reported from the Seoul metropolitan area, which has been at the center of a virus resurgence since late May.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court has blocked a lower court ruling allowing curbside voting in Alabama and waiving some absentee ballot requirements during the COVID-19 pandemic. Conservative justices granted Alabama’s request to stay a federal judge’s order that would allow local officials to offer curbside voting in the July runoff and loosen absentee ballot requirements in three of the state’s large counties. The order will remain stayed while the court decides whether to hear Alabama’s appeal. Alabama argued that it would be confusing to change absentee ballot rules in three of Alabama’s 67 counties and that curbside voting would be a major change done right before the election.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered that face coverings must be worn in public across most of the state. The move announced Thursday is a dramatic ramp-up of the Republican governor’s efforts to control spiking numbers of confirmed coronavirus cases and hospitalizations. Abbott had pushed Texas’ aggressive reopening of the state economy in May. He previously said the government could not order individuals to wear masks. His previous orders had undercut early efforts by local governments to enforce mask requirements. Thursday's order requires “all Texans to wear a face covering over the nose and mouth in public spaces in counties with 20 or more positive" coronavirus cases."
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