Parasite cyclospora spreads through produce and water contaminated with feces and causes the intestinal illness cyclosporiasis

The US Centers for Disease Prevention has been working to find the source of a parasitic illness that causes “explosive”, watery diarrhea, with more than 400 cases of the sickness reported across 18 states.

The parasite, cyclospora, spreads through raw produce and water contaminated with human feces – and it causes the intestinal illness cyclosporiasis, whose symptoms include cramps, nausea, fatigue, loss of appetite, low-grade fever and vomiting. The most commonly reported symptom is “watery diarrhea with frequent and sometimes explosive bowel movements”, according to the CDC.

There were 145 cases of cyclosporiasis reported across 17 states between 1 May and 16 June, the CDC said. Of those cases, 20 resulted in hospitalization.

New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, exalted the city’s legacy of immigrants on Friday in a historically laden, ideological counterpoint to a US semiquincentennial address that was expected later in the day from Donald Trump – who has sought to deport immigrants en masse throughout his second presidency.

Speaking from behind a desk at New York’s city hall that belonged to the US’s first president, George Washington, and which itself is a century older than the Resolute desk in the White House, Mamdani was surrounded by naturalized citizens like himself as he listed the waves of immigrants who shaped the city.

“Hundreds of thousands of Irish immigrants arrived with stomachs aching from a famine manufactured by imperial cruelty,” Mamdani said. “Chinese sailors settled in what is today Chinatown. Millions more traveled under the Statue of Liberty and through Ellis Island. Jewish people escaping pogroms, Italians fleeing poverty. Syrians seeking economic opportunity.

The president has claimed the fair is “packed with happy people” but footage from the National Mall tells a different story

CNN correspondent Kaitlan Collins trolled President Donald Trump’s Great American State Fair by showing just how few people showed up to the week-long event.

Standing on the National Mall Thursday among a sparse crowd, Collins said “for a president who often fixates on crowd size, so far the fair on Washington’s National Mall hasn’t exactly lived up to the hype.”

The fair was intended to showcase goods and culture across America’s 50 states. However, when Trump has been accused of ‘hijacking’ events around America’s 250th birthday to make them about himself. The fair was opened with sparse booths and limited attractions. This, combined with D.C.’s ongoing heatwave, has resulted in minimal crowds attending and a lot of mockery on social media.

Princess Cruises vessel is docked in San Francisco for disinfecting in third outbreak for company this year

More than 100 passengers and about 23 crew members on a Princess Cruises ship fell sick from suspected norovirus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), marking the third outbreak to hit one of the company’s watercraft this year.

The Ruby Princess vessel set sail on 12 June from San Francisco, bound for Alaska and Canada, with a scheduled return on 2 July. More than two weeks into the journey, CDC officials received a report of an outbreak, which is defined by a threshold of 3% or more of passengers. Aboard the ship were 3,032 passengers and 1,144 crew members, according to the CDC.

The ship was docked in San Francisco on Thursday for disinfecting.

Norovirus is highly contagious and can induce diarrhea and vomiting. It can spread when tiny particles of fecal matter or vomit get into the mouth. Hand-to-mouth contact with contaminated objects can also facilitate the illness’s spread.

Exiled Tibetans say the man’s self-immolation was an appeal for Tibetan independence from China

Police in New York said a man has died from severe burns near the United Nations headquarters, and activists ⁠and a media outlet ⁠of exiled Tibetans identified him as a Tibetan who set himself on fire in an appeal for independence.

A New York City police department spokesperson said police found the man badly burned after responding to an emergency call ⁠made at about 6.30pm ET .

He was taken to Bellevue hospital where he was pronounced dead, police said, adding they were still investigating the death. ⁠Police did not name the man and did not provide any potential motive for his action.

Voice of Tibet, a media outlet of exiled Tibetans, said Tibetan activist Lobga ‌Rangzen “self-immolated outside the UN headquarters in ‌New York after a live appeal for Tibetan independence and unity”.

Republican Liz Murrill was indicted for the alleged intimidation of New Orleans elected officials

Louisiana’s highest court has granted a stay of the proceedings in a criminal indictment targeting the state’s attorney general, in the latest twist of a high-stakes political battle between Republican state leaders and Democrats who govern its most famous city, New Orleans.

Liz Murrill, a Republican who is Louisiana’s first female attorney general, was slapped with a 16-count indictment on Thursday by a New Orleans grand jury charging her with intimidation and malfeasance. The charges effectively accused her of trying to intimidate New Orleans officials who fought a law passed by Republican legislators to overhaul the city’s courts.

Political tensions for months have intensified between Louisiana state Republicans and Democratic New Orleans officials over a new law that abolished a court clerk office won by Calvin Duncan, who spent nearly three decades in prison in connection to a murder that he was exonerated of having committed.

Murrill at one point told eight New Orleans officials – including Helena Moreno, the mayor, and Jason Williams, the district attorney – that they could face removal from their jobs because they opposed the law eliminating Duncan’s position.

Duncan has said he believes state officials were retaliating against him by eliminating the job that he won in November with 68% of the votes cast. Murrill and Landry have long refused to acknowledge Duncan as exonerated, though he’s listed on the National Registry of Exonerations.

More than 120 passengers and crew members on a Princess Cruises ship that docked in San Francisco on Thursday were infected with a stomach virus while on their voyage, federal health officials said.

The Ruby Princess was on a 20-day round trip journey from San Francisco to Canada and Alaska when 102 passengers and 23 crew members were stricken by norovirus, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Norovirus is highly contagious, often spread by food or on surfaces, particularly in crowded conditions. It is a short-lived illness for many people, but can be dangerous for people with underlying health conditions, young children and those aged 65 and older.

Internal National Park Service documents seen by The Washington Post suggest visitors should “avoid prolonged exposure” in unhealthy areas

July 4 fireworks in Washington, D.C. may cause hazardous levels of pollution around the National Mall, according to a report. ​

More than 850,000 pyrotechnic effects are set to be launched from areas surrounding the Mall, West Potomac Park and the Potomac River throughout the display, Freedom 250 says, to mark 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.​

However, internal National Park Service documents obtained by The Washington Post suggest particles from firework combustion could create “very unhealthy” conditions in central D.C this weekend.​

The health warning is another potential blow to Trump’s planned celebrations, following the appearance of algae-blooms and peeling paint in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. The commander-in-chief was also reportedly “livid” at the crowd size at his kick off event for the Great American State Fair.

Consultants tied to Donald Trump may have engaged in financial fraud, tricking donors who wanted to support the nation’s bipartisan 250th anniversary organizer into sending their money instead to a rival group set up by his administration, according to a report released Thursday by House Democrats.

The report draws in part on interviews by Democratic staffers of the House Committee on Natural Resources. Those interviews suggest that donors seeking to celebrate America fell for a bait-and-switch that, if true, could have violated various criminal statutes.

Donors who were intending to contribute funds to America250, a bipartisan committee created by Congress, were instead given the banking and routing numbers for a different but similarly named group, Freedom 250, the Democratic report says.

Critics condemn decision by education board aligned with hard-right Ron DeSantis to block access to college system

Immigration advocates in Florida have decried a “cruel and harmful” new rule by education officials aligned with hard-right Republican governor Ron DeSantis to ban undocumented students from state colleges and universities.

The Florida board of education voted on Tuesday to bar access to its 28 state-funded institutions to anybody not a US citizen or “lawfully present” in the country. It follows Florida’s move last year to strip discounted in-state tuition rates for certain immigrant students.

Opponents on Wednesday assailed the new directive, which some analysts estimate could cost Florida up to $15m annually in lost tuition and other fees. They also questioned if it was legal, given that it was approved by DeSantis’s hand-picked board of seven, instead of the elected state legislature.

June’s drop in the unemployment rate was because of an exodus of workers from the labor force.

The labor force participation rate, which measures the working-age population of those either employed or looking for a job, fell to 61.5%, the lowest since March 2021, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Excluding the Covid-era jobs market, it was the lowest participation rate since June 1976.

The labor force plummeted by 720,000 in June.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on Wednesday fired two members of the state’s clemency board after they spoke out against his controversial decision to grant clemency to Tina Peters – an election denier whose sentence was cut in half by the outgoing Democratic governor in May.

Azra Taslimi and Hannah Seigel Proff told CNN they were fired after speaking out publicly, including in a New York Times article in June, in which they revealed secret details about the clemency process and criticized the governor for overruling the board. They told the Times the clemency board twice voted unanimously behind closed doors to reject Peters’ application for an early release from prison.

Polis’ decision in May to release Peters came after Donald Trump waged a long pressure campaign against Colorado to free her. Peters – who was released from prison in June – was the last Trump ally still in prison for 2020 election-related crimes.