Peru's coronavirus death rate is now the highest in the world, surpassing Belgium and exceeding even Brazil (7th) and the U.S. (8th).
Why it matters: Peru and Belgium illustrate the divergence between the world's two hardest-hit regions since the eye of the storm shifted from Europe to Latin America in the spring.
A group of veteran Voice of America journalists penned a letter to VOA acting director Elez Biberaj saying that Michael Pack, the new CEO of VOA's parent agency, the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), is endangering the livelihoods of contract journalists.
Why it matters: Pack has been the center of controversy ever since he took over the agency in June. The letter alleges that Pack's recent remarks in an interview with the conservative-leaning website The Federalist prove his malicious intent.
Flashback: In a similar poll conducted shortly before the 2016 election, Trump led Hillary Clinton by a 41%-21% margin. Since 2016, though, the president's approval rating among active-duty troops has fallen from 46% to 38%, while his disapproval rating has climbed to 50%.
Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect a correction from Military Times. Due to an error, their article initially showed Biden with 43.1%, but has been updated to 41.3%.
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plan to discuss the pending sale of F-35 fighter jets by the U.S. to the UAE, Jared Kushner told reporters on board the first commercial flight from Israel to the UAE, which landed in Abu Dhabi this morning.
Why it matters: The White House has hailed the normalization deal it brokered between Israel and the UAE as a breakthrough for the region — but shortly after the announcement, a major disagreement emerged over the UAE's desire to acquire the F-35.
India reported Sunday 78,761 new coronavirus cases in 24 hours, taking the total number in the country to over 3.5 million.
Why it matters: It's the highest single-day spike in COVID-19 cases reported by a country since the pandemic began. India has the fastest-growing number of daily cases, with over 75,000 being reported for four consecutive days, per AP. "Crowded cities," not enough contact tracing and "lockdown fatigue" are driving the spread in the country of 1.4 billion people, as restrictions are loosened aimed a struggling economy, the New York Times notes.
Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told special counsel Robert Mueller in May 2017 to only conduct a criminal investigation of possible coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, secretly curtailing an FBI counterintelligence probe into President Trump's ties to Russia, the New York Times' Mike Schmidt reports.
Why it matters: Acting FBI director Andrew McCabe had approved the opening of the counterintelligence investigation out of concerns that Trump's decades of personal and financial dealings in Russia posed a national security threat. Rosenstein, concluding that the probe lacked justification and that McCabe had conflicts of interest, never informed him of the decision.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) denied on Sunday that the theory that the Ukrainian government interfered in the 2016 election on behalf of Democrats is Russian disinformation, telling CNN's Dana Bash: "That's your typification that it has been debunked."
Why it matters: The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee found that "numerous Russian-government actors" promoted "false narratives" seeking to discredit investigations into 2016 Russian election interference by blaming Ukraine. The committee identified "no reliable evidence" that the Ukrainian government interfered in the election.
A delegation of senior representatives from all Israeli security and intelligence agencies will travel to the UAE in the next two weeks to discuss security aspects of the U.S.-brokered normalization deal, two Israeli officials tell me.
Why it matters: Israel and the UAE have had a secret security relationship for more than two decades, but Israeli and Emirati officials hope that security dialogue and cooperation between the countries will be broadened as a result of the normalization deal. The Trump administration created a trilateral security dialogue between the U.S., Israel and the UAE.
New export controls on technologies that Beijing deems sensitive are threatening to derail efforts by American companies to acquire TikTok's U.S. operations from its Chinese parent company ByteDance, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Driving the news: The regulations were unveiled on Friday and prevent "technology based on data analysis for personalized information recommendation services" — which would likely apply to TikTok's AI content-recommendation engine — from being exported without a license, according to the New York Times.
Berlin police arrested 300 demonstrators after disbanding a protest Saturday over Germany's coronavirus restrictions as tens of thousands of participants refused to maintain social distancing, per the BBC.
Why it matters: Berlin's regional government tried to ban the protest earlier this week, citing concern for public health. Protesters successfully appealed the decision on Friday, though a court required demonstrators to observe social distancing.
President Trump tweeted late Saturday that the U.S. is "planning to cut" its military presence in Iraq, without elaborating further.
The big picture: Trump's tweet linked to an OAN article reporting that American troop numbers in the region would decline from 5,200 to 3,500, a number also reported by the Wall Street Journal and Stars and Stripes. Coalition forces left three Iraqi bases in March, including the U.S.-led coalition withdrawal from K1 Air Base. The White House and Defense Department did not immediately respond to Axios' requests for comment.
