Latest updates
More than 130 Secret Service officers 'have COVID-19 or are quarantining' after Trump campaign travel
By Carol D. Leonnig and Josh Dawsey
Washington: More than 130 Secret Service officers who help protect the White House and the President when he travels have recently been ordered to isolate or quarantine because they tested positive for the coronavirus or had close contact with infected co-workers, according to three people familiar with agency staffing.
The spread of the coronavirus – which has sidelined roughly 10 per cent of the agency's core security team – is believed to be partly linked to a series of campaign rallies that President Donald Trump held in the weeks before the November 3 election, according to the people, who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the situation.
Trump is constantly monitored by Secret Service agents during his public appearances.Credit:AP
The outbreak comes as coronavirus cases have been rapidly rising across the nation, with more than 152,000 new cases reported on Thursday, local time.
The virus is having a dramatic impact on the Secret Service's presidential security unit at the same time that growing numbers of prominent Trump campaign allies and White House officials have fallen ill in the wake of campaign events, where many attendees did not wear masks.
Among those who are infected are White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and outside political advisers Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie.
Trump praises new vaccine, refuses to concede election
By Rachel Eddie
US President Donald Trump is giving an update on the coronavirus vaccine in his first press conference since media outlets declared Joe Biden winner of the presidential election.
Trump has claimed that an effective vaccine would have taken up to five years to develop a vaccine for COVID-19 under another administration, after Pfizer announced early results it was 90 per cent effective.
US President Donald Trump.Credit:AP
Trump, who is yet to concede defeat in the election, said the vaccine could be available to the public as early as April to high-risk Americans.
"The past nine months my administration has initiated the single greatest mobilisation in US history, pioneering, developing and manufacturing therapies and vaccines in record time. Numbers like nobody's seen before," Trump said at a press conference at the White House rose garden.
He claimed that other world leaders have called him to congratulate him on the country's Operation Warp Speed, to enable and accelerate the development of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Trump said "This administration will not be going to a lockdown".
"By giving the vaccine to high risk individuals right away, we'll dramatically reduce hospitalisations and deaths."
Make that 15-straight doughnut days
By Rachel Eddie
Updated: Victoria has recorded its 15th consecutive day of zero cases of COVID-19, outdoing the government's targets to ease restrictions.
It was another "double doughnut day" with no new deaths or cases, after 14,614 tests were processed.
There are still just three active cases of the coronavirus in all of Victoria, and there is one case of unknown local transmission infected between October 29 to November 11.
Victoria's Health Minister Martin Foley will be speaking at 10.15am.
Two NSW police officers injured breaking up house party
By Kate Aubusson
Two police officers were injured as they tried to break up a house party of more than 100 people in Surry Hills on Friday night, far exceeding the COVID-safe 20 person maximum.
Three people have been charged and two police officers injured after the officers responded to complaints about loud noise coming from a unit complex on Nobbs Street around 1am.
The officers from Surry Hills Police Area Command talked to a man at the door and a female constable was pulled inside the unit, NSW Police said.
Police used pepper spray on the revellers, who released the female constable before retreating back into the unit and locking the door.
Police back up were called in from Sydney City, Surry Hills and Kings Cross Police Area Command, as well as the Public Order and Riot Squad.
After initially refusing, the crowd of more than 100 people in the how eventually began leaving the unit.
A 19-year-old woman was treated by paramedics after reportedly having a panic attack. She was taken to St Vincent’s Hospital.
A female and a male police constable went with her - both suffering minor injuries. They have since left the hospital.
The three people arrested were taken to Surry Hills Police Station.
A 19-year-old woman was charged with refusing or failing to comply with direction and behaving in an offensive manner in or near a public place.
A second 19-year-old woman was charged with refusing or failing to comply with direction under and resisting or hindering a police officer in the execution of their duty.
A 24-year-old man was charged with resisting or hindering police office in the execution of their duty.
All three are due to appear at Downing Centre Local Court in January.
NSW Police are investigating whether to enforce NSW’s Public Health Order banning more than 20 visitors in a private residence at any once time.
Every person inside a home with more than 20 visitors can be held individually responsible for a breach of the Public Health Order and risk fines up to $11,000 or six months imprisonment or both.
'Economic inequality on steroids': Greens to fight stage three tax cuts
By Jennifer Duke
Top earners will take home the majority of personal income tax cuts worth $325 billion over the next decade in a move the Greens label "economic inequality on steroids".
Parliamentary Budget Office modelling requested by Greens leader Adam Bandt shows the Morrison government's tax reform plan will see 58 per cent of the savings flow to the top 20 per cent of income earners compared to 0.1 per cent for the lowest paid. Those in the middle bracket will get 15 per cent of the benefit of the cuts.
Greens leader Adam Bandt. The Greens plan to fight to stop the government's stage three tax cuts from coming into effect.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Mr Bandt will reveal the figures at his second national conference as leader of the Greens on Saturday afternoon, in a speech calling out wealth inequality as a crucial fight for the party over the next 12 months.
"In 2030 alone, those tax cuts will suck $43 billion out of public services, three times what they will spend on our public schools in that year," Mr Bandt will say.
The October federal budget unveiled $17.8 billion of tax cuts would be brought forward in a bid to encourage spending in the economy and help household budgets. This provides tax reductions worth up to $2745 for singles, in part by increasing the top earning thresholds of the 19 per cent and 32.5 per cent tax brackets. These cuts are expected to kick in on Monday.
Industry offers 20,000 quarantine places for international students
By Tim Boreham
Australia's dominant provider of purpose built student accommodation (PBSA) is offering its facilities to quarantine up to 20,000 foreign scholars, if the federal government allows an "industry led" solution to the sagging $40 billion international student industry.
With the PBSA sector's vacancy rate hovering around 50 per cent, Scape Australia chairman Craig Carracher said student numbers would decline further without measures to rekindle the sector, including charter flights and more flexible quarantine arrangements.
Scape is warning student numbers will fall further without measures to rekindle the sector.Credit:
"If we don't open up [quarantine] beyond hotels we won't get students back," Mr Carracher said, adding that he was encouraged by the signals emanating from Canberra.
National COVID-19 Commission Advisory Board head and former Fortescue Metals chief executive Neville Power has flagged options to attract foreign students and workers, including improved testing to reduce the mandatory two-week quarantine period to days.
Watch: US President Donald Trump gives update on COVID-19 vaccine
US President Donald Trump is due to give an update on COVID-19 vaccine work this morning at 8am AEDT.
NSW Health tracking down 455 New Zealand arrivals after Auckland COVID-19 case
By James Massola
NSW Health is trying to track down the 455 people who have recently arrived from New Zealand after a new COVID-19 case emerged in Auckland’s CBD.
The passengers who arrived since November 5 have all been sent a message with details about the Auckland venues linked to the case, and instructions to monitor for symptoms and get tested and isolate if they are unwell.
Nurses speak to people waiting in line at a testing station on High St, Auckland, near the A-Z Collection store where a worker has tested positive for COVID-19.Credit:Getty Images
Passengers landing in Sydney from New Zealand on Friday night were also informed, but none reported having attended any of the venues or had symptoms.
Airlines will not allow passengers to leave New Zealand in the future if they have attended any of these venues.
New Zealand's COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said the new virus sample, from a female student based in Auckland, had now been directly, genomically linked to that of a Defence Force staff member who had spent time near where the woman worked.
As busy as Bourke Street: Push for CBD recovery gathers pace
By Bianca Hall and Craig Butt
Ten major employers have vowed to return at least 70 per cent of their workforces to CBD office towers as part of a push to reinvigorate the ailing city centre, as traffic data shows road congestion across Melbourne has returned almost to normal.
The growing commitment to return to city workplaces came as Melbourne hit the major milestone of no new coronavirus cases for 14 consecutive days, and as pedestrian traffic and public transport use rose in the fortnight since lockdown ended.
A new normal: Crowds are slowly returning to the CBD.Credit:Joe Armao
While new data shows road use and congestion at 89 per cent of pre-COVID levels, public transport patronage is at just 30 per cent of normal, suggesting a lack of trust in trains, trams and buses.
Major organisations including NAB, ANZ, Metro Trains, PwC and Telstra have signed up to a City of Melbourne "CEO pledge", vowing that as soon as public health restrictions are relaxed, they will bring at least 70 per cent of their workforce back to the CBD.
As US coronavirus cases shatter all records, officials resist restrictions
By Michelle R Smith, Carla K Johnson and Lisa Marie Pane
With the coronavirus coming back with a vengeance and the US facing a long, dark winter, governors and other elected officials are showing little appetite for imposing the kind of lockdowns and large-scale business closings seen earlier in the year.
Many also continue to resist issuing state-wide mask rules.
Among the reasons given: public fatigue, fear of doing more damage to already crippled businesses, lack of support from Washington, and the way efforts to tame the virus have become ferociously politicised.
A medical worker at a COVID-19 mobile testing site in the Brooklyn borough of New York.Credit:AP
"I think that governors and mayors are, again, are in a really tough spot. The American population is emotionally and economically exhausted," said Dr Megan Ranney, an emergency physician and professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.
"I think that there are some minimum things that governors and mayors could and should be doing right now. But the trouble is, without support from the federal government, it becomes very difficult to do these things," Ranney said, citing the need for a stimulus package from Washington to help businesses pull through.
Increasingly alarmed public health officials and medical experts say time is running out as hospitals buckle under the crush of cases and Americans approach Thanksgiving, a period of heavy travel and family gatherings that are all but certain to fuel the spread of the virus.
The coronavirus is blamed for 10.6 million confirmed infections and almost a quarter of a million deaths in the US, with the closely watched University of Washington model projecting nearly 439,000 dead by March 1. Deaths have climbed to about 1000 a day on average.
New cases per day are soaring, shattering records over and over and reaching an all-time high on Thursday of more than 153,000.
AP
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2020-11-13 22:16:00Z
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