As the nation prepares to celebrate Independence Day, President Trump said Thursday that anarchists, looters and “fools” cannot spoil the patriotic party. “The American dream is the sacred birthright of every American child,” Mr. Trump said at the White House. “And nobody’s going to shatter the American dream — not the anarchists, not the agitators,…

The Supreme Court said Thursday that it won’t speed a case challenging Texas’ restrictions on mail-in voting, leaving in place lower court rulings that said fear of contracting the coronavirus isn’t a valid reason under state law. The high court had previously refused to lift those lower court rulings, and now it says it won’t…

A San Quentin State Prison inmate on Death Row, convicted in the cold-case killing of an 8-year-old Bay Area girl, has died, and officials are investigating whether he was infected with the coronavirus. Joseph S. Cordova, 75, was found unresponsive in his single cell at 4:08 p.m. Wednesday, officials said. He was pronounced dead at…

Health|Did a Mutation Help the Coronavirus Spread? More Evidence, but Lingering QuestionsResearchers claim that a predominating variant had a “fitness advantage.” But many experts are not persuaded.A colored scanning electron micrograph of a dying cell infected with the coronavirus, with viral particles in red.Credit...National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, via ReutersJuly 2, 2020Updated 11:29…

Coronavirus infections among eight people are tied to a large party where the host had COVID-19 symptoms in Rockland County outside of New York City, health officials said.But some of the partygoers are refusing to comply with contract tracers — and they will get subpoenas with possible fines of $2,000 a day, officials said.Dr. Patricia…