No social distancing at Mt. Rushmore event attended by Trump, governor says

Mount Rushmore National Memorial in Keystone, South Dakota, is pictured on April 23. Kerem Yucel/AFP/Getty Images

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said there "won’t be social distancing" and masks will be optional at this weekend's Fourth of July celebration at Mount Rushmore, which President Trump said he'll attend.

In an interview with Fox News, Noem said those who are concerned about the event — which is actually taking place on July 3 — should stay home.

"We told those folks that have concerns that they can stay home, but those who want to come and join us, we'll be giving out free face masks, if they choose to wear one," she said.

However, she added:

What we know about the event: According to Recreation.gov, there was an online lottery for tickets, and the park will be closed to general visitation during the event, opening to ticketed guests at 3:00 p.m. local time. 

There may be health screening for ticketed guests in one area, but the website warns: “This event will be attended by thousands. Participants will be in close contact for an extended amount of time, please plan accordingly.”

CNN put in requests with the park, the National Park Service, and the Governor’s office for details on how many tickets have been distributed and what, if any, measures will be taken to enforce social distancing or the wearing of face coverings.

A recording on the park’s main telephone line Monday said, “There are no social distancing requirements in place at this time.” 

A pair of baseballs are in the dugout prior to a spring training game between the New York Yankees and the Detroit Tigers in Lakeland, Florida, on March 1. Mark Cunningham/MLB Photos/Getty Images

As Major League Baseball gets ready to restart its season next month, the league is encouraging players to not socialize or come within six feet of each other during upcoming games. The league is banning spitting of any kind with chewing gum permitted as an alternative.

On Monday, MLB revealed a sampling of the unique on-field rules and procedures teams will adhere to starting this week. Players and staff are required to report to their teams this Wednesday.

MLB said all personnel will be required to complete Covid-19 screening and testing before entering club facilities. Clubs can begin full workouts starting Friday with Opening Day games on either July 23 or 24.  

The league has told all 30 clubs that they must submit coronavirus health and safety action plans for league approval. Clubs are also being told that they need to physically expand dugout and bullpen spaces at their respective ballparks.

As for players socializing, the league said this:

New non-traditional rules will be in place when the season starts including the addition of a designated hitter in the National League and placing a runner on second base at the start of each teams’ extra-inning frame.

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson takes questions after delivering a speech during his visit to Dudley College of Technology in Dudley, England, on June 30. Paul Ellis/Pool/AFP/Getty Images

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has promised to “unleash the potential of the entire country” as he announced what he described as a "New Deal" for Britain to help its struggling economy recover from coronavirus. 

Likening his ambitions to rebuild the country to the achievements of Franklin D Roosevelt, who carried out an overhaul of the US economy in the wake of the Great Depression, Johnson said his government would be "powerful and determined and [put] its arms around people at a time of crisis.”

The £5 billion ($6.2bn) plan will focus on infrastructure projects, which the government has said will fuel jobs and economic recovery.

In recent weeks, Johnson's pandemic response has been attacked across the political spectrum, as the UK has suffered one of the worst death tolls in the world.

The country went into lockdown later than many other European nations, and the government's core strategy to protect the national health service and abandon testing in the wider public on March 12 was widely criticized by public health experts, who believe it has led to thousands of unnecessary deaths in the community.

Johnson has also been embroiled in a scandal surrounding his chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, who it emerged had traveled over 260 miles with his wife and child after developing virus symptoms.

In economic terms, the UK is trying to stave off its worst downturn in more than 300 years. The country's GDP contracted by more than 20% in April, a record, following a 6% decline in March. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development warned in June that the UK would suffer the worst downturn of any major economy this year.

Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon responded to Johnson's plan on Tuesday, saying the stimulus fell "woefully short" of the money needed to put the UK "on a par with Germany."

"I also suspect there will be less to it than meets the eye in terms of genuinely new money," she said on Twitter.

The United States has long prided itself as the world's shining beacon. But its current status is a much darker one: the globe's leader in coronavirus cases.

More than 125,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the US, and more than 2.5 million Americans have been infected.

American life has been irrevocably altered by the worst pandemic in a century. And as the country struggles to reopen, cases of Covid-19 have surged again -- this time in young people and in states that had previously avoided the brunt of the virus.

Read the full story about the pandemic's devastating toll on the US.

At least 16 states have halted their reopening plans in response to a surge in new infections, but some health officials say the spread of coronavirus will be difficult to control.

Meanwhile, at least 36 states are seeing a rise in new coronavirus cases compared to last week. At least 11 states are seeing a 50% or more rise in cases.

The virus has been especially rampant in Arizona, and the state is closing bars, gyms and other businesses for another 30 days as a precaution. In Florida, some jurisdictions are requiring the use of face masks, including in Jacksonville, where President Trump is expected to accept the Republican presidential nomination in less than two months.

The US has reported more than 2.5 million cases of the virus and at least 126,140 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. State and local leaders have said the rise in cases are in part driven by gatherings, both in homes and in places like bars — which some experts called the perfect breeding ground for the virus.

Here's where cases are increasing across the US:

Miami Beach, Florida, Mayor Dan Gelber said the city is implementing a face mask mandate today, in part because there “hasn't been a unity of purpose in the community.”

The city still gets hundreds of thousands of visitors almost every day, Gelber said, and there will be civil penalties those those who don’t comply. 

The mayor said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis should make mask-wearing mandatory, and it’s been a “problem” to get people to wear them.  

“There are people who think it's a political statement to wear a mask, and it's like an insult to the family and they're fighting us about it, and I can't imagine why that has become something right now, other than that, you know, the President has made it something,” Gelber said.  

Watch more:

CNN's David McKenzie reports from a recreational center in South Africa converted into a field hospital as the country grapples with the worst coronavirus outbreak in Africa.

According to figures from Johns Hopkins University, South Africa has reported more than 144,000 cases of coronavirus and more than 2,500 deaths.

Watch more:

More than 10.3 million coronavirus cases have been reported worldwide, including at least 505,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University (JHU).

But the pandemic is far from coming to an end any time soon, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned Monday.

"This is not even close to being over," Tedros said at a media briefing in Geneva on Monday.

"Although many countries have made some progress globally, the pandemic is actually speeding up. We're all in this together and we're all in this for the long haul," Tedros said.

Here's what you need to know about the global outbreak:

Fauci to testify: Today, coronavirus task force member Dr. Anthony Fauci, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield and other top government health officials will testify before a Senate Committee on the latest efforts by the US government to contain the pandemic.

The Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions panel hearing comes as several states are struggling to contain the virus as cases counts continue to rise across the nation and states begin to reopen. The US reported more than 40,000 new Covid-19 cases on Friday, its biggest daily jump yet.

EU preparing to reopen its borders -- but probably not to Americans: The European Union is preparing to reopen its external border to 15 countries outside of the bloc as early as Wednesday. However, one country that won't be featured on the proposed list is the United States, according to two EU diplomats.

There have been almost 2.6 million cases of coronavirus in the US and at least 126,000 people have died, according to JHU.

The diplomats, who were not permitted to discuss the matter before the EU's 27 member states had reached an agreement, have confirmed to CNN that EU governments have been given until lunchtime Tuesday to agree on the list of 15 countries allowed entry.

"High incidence" of cases among children in new UK hotspot: UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Tuesday that there is an unusually “high incidence” of coronavirus cases among children in Leicester, a city in England's East Midlands region and the first in the UK to be put under a localized lockdown. One in 10 of all of positive cases across the whole country in the last week have happened in Leicester, Hancock said, but local officials have warned that enforcing the lockdown will be challenging given a lack of resources.

Australian state announces partial lockdown after coronavirus case rise: The Australian state of Victoria announced a partial lockdown after seeing a double-digit rise in the newly confirmed cases for over two weeks. On Wednesday 11:50 pm local, ten postcode areas in Victoria will return to stage 3 “Stay at Home” until July 29th.

Members of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) gather information and conduct temperature checks at a drive-in Covid-19 testing site in Melbourne, Australia, on Tuesday, June 30. Carla Gottgens/Bloomberg/Getty Images

The Australian state of Victoria announced a partial lockdown after seeing a double-digit rise in the newly confirmed cases for over two weeks.

On Wednesday 11:50 pm local time, 10 postcode areas in Victoria will return to stage 3 “Stay at Home” until July 29, Premier Daniel Andrews announced in a daily press briefing on Tuesday.

What does this mean? People who live in one of the so-called "hot zones" can only go out for food and supplies, care and caregiving, exercise, and study or work -- if they can’t do it from home, and the Victorian police will be “actively enforcing these suburban lockdowns.”

Andrews was told in a briefing that “at least a significant number and potentially more” of the outbreaks in the north of the city are attributable to “staff members in hotel quarantine breaching well-known, well-understood infection control protocol,” he said.

He would not elaborate further on the details of those breaches, but said he will have a former judge conduct an inquiry into those infection control protocol breaches.

Andrews said when there’s a spike in cases, they “literally leave no stone unturned to try and answer the riddle,” using genomic sequencing as an important tool to provide answers on the linkages between cases that are not always apparent through contact tracing.

Last Friday, Victoria announced that it would launch a targeted blitz for testing, allowing residents in 10 suburbs to receive free testing for the next 10 days.

So far 93,000 tests have been conducted in total, the biggest testing effort in Australia.