Disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein has been charged with six more counts of sexual assault in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles District Attorney says.
Los Angeles officials have already started extradition proceedings to bring Harvey Weinstein to the city from a New York jail. Photo: AFP / Getty
The charges involve two victims of alleged incidents that occurred more than 10 years ago.
Weinstein now faces 11 sexual assault charges in Los Angeles County involving five women, District Attorney Jackie Lacey said in a statement.
In March, he was sentenced to 23 years in prison for rape and sexual assault.
During that trial in New York, the 68-year-old was found guilty of committing a first-degree criminal sexual act against one woman and third-degree rape of another woman.
The latest charges allege that he raped a woman at a hotel in Beverly Hills between 2004 and 2005, and raped another woman twice - in November 2009 and November 2010.
In January, Weinstein was charged with sexually assaulting two women in 2013. Then in April, a further charge alleging that he assaulted a woman at a Beverly Hills hotel in 2010 was added.
Los Angeles officials have already started extradition proceedings, however, this has been delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Another extradition hearing is set to take place in December.
In March, Weinstein himself was said to have tested positive for coronavirus in a prison in upstate New York.
A spokesman for Weinstein said: "Harvey Weinstein has always maintained that every one of his physical encounters throughout his entire life have been consensual. That hasn't changed."
The spokesman said they would not comment on the additional charges.
Allegations against Weinstein began to emerge in 2017 when the New York Times first reported incidents dating back over decades.
He issued an apology acknowledging that he had "caused a lot of pain", but disputed the allegations.
As dozens more emerged, Weinstein was sacked from the board of his company and all but banished from Hollywood.
A criminal investigation was launched in New York in late 2017, but Weinstein was not charged until May 2018 when he turned himself in to police.
When he was sentenced to prison in March this year, jurors acquitted him of the most serious charges of predatory sexual assault, which could have seen him given an even longer jail term.
-BBC
French President Emmanuel Macron has announced plans for tougher laws to tackle what he called "Islamist separatism" and to defend secular values.
French President Emmanuel Macron delivering a speech on his strategy to fight separatism, near Paris. Photo: AFP
In a keenly awaited speech, Macron said a minority of France's estimated six million Muslims were in danger of forming a "counter-society".
His proposals include stricter oversight of schooling and control over foreign funding of mosques.
He had been under pressure to address radical Islam amid security fears.
But his comments were condemned by some Muslim activists who accused him of trying to repress Islam in the country.
Under France's strict principles of secularism, or laïcité, the government is separated by law from religious institutions. The idea is that people of different religions and beliefs are equal before the law.
The minaret on top of Maryam Mosque in the city of Caen, northwestern France. Photo: AFP
The country has the largest population of Muslims in Western Europe. Many complain the authorities use secularism to specifically target them, for instance in banning the hijab.
Speaking outside Paris on Friday, Macron said radical Islam was a danger to France because it held its own laws above all others and "often results in the creation of a counter-society".
He said this form of sectarianism often translated into children being kept out of school, and the use of sporting, cultural and other community activities as a "pretext to teach principles that do not conform to the laws of the republic".
"Islam is a religion that is in crisis all over the world today, we are not just seeing this in our country."
The measures announced by the president will form legislation that will go to parliament before the end of the year. They include:
stricter monitoring of sports organisations and other associations, so that they don't become a front for Islamist teaching
an end to the system of imams being sent to France from abroad
improved oversight of the financing of mosques
home-schooling restricted
Macron also said France must do more to offer economic and social mobility to immigrant communities, adding that radicals had often filled the vacuum.
Tens of thousands protested against Islamophobia in Paris, on 10 November, last year. Photo: AFP
He speech was the fruit of many months of discussions with religious leaders and intellectuals, says the BBC's Hugh Schofield, in Paris. It is being spun by the Élysée Palace as a sign that he wants to talk openly and without embarrassment about the dangers posed by radical Islam.
Many also see the address as an attempt to appeal to right-wing voters ahead of the 2022 presidential election, Schofield adds.
Islam is increasingly seen as a threat to France's core values in the wake of several terror attacks targeting secular liberties such as freedom of expression.
Last week a man wounded two people with a meat cleaver outside the former Paris offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine, which the government denounced as "Islamist terrorism". In January 2015, jihadists killed 12 people in and around the magazine's offices to avenge its publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.
Muslims in France have roundly condemned the violence, and some reacted angrily to Macron's proposals on Friday.
"The repression of Muslims has been a threat, now it is a promise," tweeted French human rights activist Yasser Louati.
"In a one hour speech #Macron burried [sic] #laïcité, emboldened the far right, anti-Muslim leftists and threatened the lives of Muslim students by calling for drastic limits on home schooling despite a global pandemic."
-BBC
A Russian news editor has died after setting herself on fire in front of an interior ministry office in the city of Nizhniy Novgorod.
Nizhniy Novgorod, where Irina Slavina set herself alight. Photo: Viator
Irina Slavina earlier wrote on Facebook: "I ask you to blame the Russian Federation for my death."
Authorities confirmed her body had been found with severe burns.
Slavina said on Thursday police had searched her flat looking for materials related to the pro-democracy group Open Russia. Computers and data were seized.
Footage has emerged apparently showing the moment she set herself on fire on a bench in Gorky Street, where the interior ministry in Nizhny Novgorod is situated.
In the video, a man is seen running to a woman to help extinguish the flames. She repeatedly pushes him back as he tries to use his coat to stop the fire, before she eventually falls to the ground.
Russia's Investigative Committee confirmed that Irina Slavina, who leaves behind a husband and daughter, had died but denied any connection to a search of the journalist's flat.
'Fined all the time' - dead woman's colleague
Irina Slavina was editor-in-chief of the small Koza Press news website. Its motto is "news and analytics" and "no censorship". Its website went down on Friday, as news of her death was confirmed.
She was one of seven people in Nizhny Novgorod whose homes were searched on Thursday, apparently as part of an inquiry into Open Russia.
Last year, she was fined for "disrespecting authorities" in one of her articles.
"This news was a real blow for me, I knew her," said Natalia Gryaznevich, an aide to exiled Open Russia founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky. "I know she was harassed, detained, fined all the time. She was a very active woman," she told BBC Moscow correspondent Sarah Rainsford.
In a Facebook post on Thursday, she said 12 people had forced their way into her family's flat and seized flash drives, her laptop and her daughter's laptop as well as phones belonging to both her and her husband.
Why was her home searched?
The investigative committee insisted that Slavina was only a witness in their case - "and neither a suspect, nor accused, in the investigation of the criminal case", a spokesperson told Ria Novosti.
That criminal case appears to focus on a local businessman who allowed various opposition groups to use his spoof church for forums and other activities including training election monitors. Mikhail Iosilevich created the so-called Flying Spaghetti Monster church in 2016 whose followers were dubbed Pastafarians.
Gryaznevich told the BBC that Open Russia had taken part in a "Free People" forum in April 2019 in Nizhny Novgorod which Irina Slavina had attended as a journalist. Neither the man being investigated nor Slavina herself were part of Open Russia, she stressed.
She said the journalist had been fined $NZ97 because of her coverage of the event. The authorities had decided that the event she covered was connected to an "undesirable organisation", according to Gryaznevich.
A swathe of tougher media and internet laws have recently come into force in Russia amid concern they may be used by the government to silence its critics.
The Kremlin said at the time the legislation was needed to improve cyber security.
-BBC
By Anthony Zurcher, the BBC's North America correspondent
Analysis: The US presidential election has been turned on its head now that it has been confirmed Donald Trump has tested positive for Covid-19.
A mother and daughter listen to the national anthem at a pro-Trump rally in Duluth, Minnesota, four days ago. Photo: AFP
That sentence could have been written about any number of moments in a tumultuous year in American politics, but nothing quite like this has occurred this year, this decade, this century.
Just 32 days before the presidential election, Trump has Covid-19. Given his age, 74, he is in a high-risk category for complications from the disease. At the very least, he will have to quarantine while he is treated, meaning the US presidential contest - at least his side of it - has been fundamentally altered.
Is the election campaign suspended?
The initial implications are obvious. The president's rigorous campaign schedule - which included visits to Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Georgia, Florida and North Carolina in just the past week - is on indefinite hold.
Trump will certainly have surrogates on the trail, but given that he has relied heavily on his family and senior administration and campaign officials for such tasks in the past, and many of them may have to quarantine because of their own exposure to the virus, that operation will be disrupted as well.
Large rallies such as this one in Pennsylvania last month have always been a feature of Donald Trump's approach to politics. Photo: AFP
Even the next presidential debate, a town hall format with audience questions scheduled for 15 October in Miami, Florida, is in doubt. Perhaps the event could be conducted via video-conference, but that will largely depend on the president's health at the time.
At this point, there is no serious talk of altering the election schedule, which would require an act of Congress passed by both the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and the Republican-held Senate.
In some states, in fact, early voting has already begun.
How will this affect the polls?
Then there are the political implications. Despite the aforementioned turmoil this year - the pandemic and resulting economic disruption, the nationwide demonstrations against institutional racism and police brutality following George Floyd's death and sometimes violent unrest in several major US cities, the countless smaller crises and controversies that seem like a daily occurrence during the Trump years - this presidential race has been remarkably stable.
Democrat Joe Biden has held a statistically significant lead over the president for months in national polls, with a smaller but still noteworthy advantage in key swing states. Time was running out for the president to change this dynamic, even before this week's dramatic news.
The public has consistently given the president low marks for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, so anything that puts the focus on the disease is potentially damaging for his re-election prospects. Complicating matters for the president will be that many Americans might recall what many would describe as the president's sometimes cavalier attitude toward Covid-19.
At the presidential debate on Wednesday, Trump belittled Biden for frequently wearing masks and not having campaign rallies that matched his own in size.
"I don't wear a mask like him," Trump said. "Every time you see him, he's got a mask."
Joe Biden arrives in Kenosha, Wisconsin. (file pic) Photo: AFP
While the president has, at times, stressed the importance of social distancing and taking the virus seriously, he has also trafficked in questionable science; said the virus would disappear "like magic"; and attacked state officials who have imposed more aggressive mitigation measures and been slower to reopen businesses and schools than he would like.
Trump's coronavirus infection will cast all of these past comments into sharp relief - once again raising questions about whether he took the pandemic seriously enough both on a national policy level and within the White House itself, where the president's health and safety must, for the nation's sake, be of paramount concern.
What are the risks for Democrats?
During times of national turmoil, the American public tends to rally in support of the president. While Trump and his administration will face hard questions about the virus, he and his wife will also be the recipients of national sympathy and prayers for the health ordeal that confronts them.
Democrats and the president's critics may be inclined to engage in a chorus of "I told you so" and celebrate what they see as political karma, but they do so at risk of seeming callous or indifferent to the crisis that confronts the nation.
More than 200,000 Americans have died of Covid-19 at this point - and grieving families and friends may not appreciate any form of victim-blaming.
The Biden campaign will face a challenge on how to respond. For months the Democratic nominee has kept a lower profile in order to limit his risk of exposure - and has been mocked by Republicans, including the president himself, for "hiding" in the basement of his Delaware home.
Recently, however, he has stepped up his in-person campaigning, including a train tour of Ohio and western Pennsylvania on Wednesday. The campaign also announced that it would resume door-to-door voter canvassing, although it had criticised the Trump campaign for conducting in-person activities in the past.
It seems unlikely Biden will suspend activities while the president is off the trail undergoing treatment, but his campaign may have to re-evaluate whether its recent activities should again be curtailed.
"Jill and I send our thoughts to President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump for a swift recovery," Biden tweeted. "We will continue to pray for the health and safety of the president and his family."
The Democratic nominee is setting a measured tone for his party - but it may be difficult for some to follow his lead.
Will this affect the Supreme Court nomination?
Trump's positive test is already sending shockwaves from the White House through Washington.
As Congress prepared to recess to allow its members to campaign for re-election, the legislature had been busy on two fronts - trying to negotiate a follow-up Covid-19 stimulus package, and begin the process of confirming Trump nominee Amy Coney Barrett to replace the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the US Supreme Court.
Donald Trump with Amy Coney Barrett at the White House. (file pic) Photo: Getty Images
Trump administration officials, ones who have been in close proximity to the president, have been heavily involved in both undertakings.
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin was at the Capitol yesterday negotiating with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in a last-ditch effort to find agreement on relief legislation. And Barrett, along with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Vice-President Mike Pence, spent a long day on Wednesday visiting Republican members of Senate who will eventually vote on whether to seat her on the court.
Mnuchin, Meadows and Pence have all announced negative tests but none is fully in the clear yet.
The schedule for Barrett's pre-election confirmation was always going to be tight, requiring near-flawless execution in the face of Democratic efforts to disrupt and delay the process.
Now it seems almost certain that the vote will take place after November's vote, when there is the possibility that the American people would have dealt Trump and the Republican Party a defeat at the polls.
What about other consequences?
What other political knock-on effects could come from this news could depend largely on how far the virus has spread in the upper echelons of US government and how the president responds to his treatment.
The political uncertainty could further disrupt whatever economic recovery was under way, as public confidence plummets and businesses again brace for a drop in revenue.
Concerns about contracting the virus, sharpened by the president's diagnosis, could encourage more Americans to shift to mail-in balloting instead of in-person voting, causing delays in reporting the election results. If the election is close, the potential for a protracted legal fight over who won could increase.
In a year of political tempests, the biggest storms may be yet to come.
- BBC
US President Donald Trump has mild symptoms of Covid-19 after he and his wife, Melania, tested positive for the coronavirus, the White House says.
The process of tracking all Donald Trump's contacts in recent days has begun in the US. Photo: AFP
Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, said the president was "on the job" and "in good spirits", adding that he expected him to make a quick recovery.
Meadows said the president remains energetic, and gave him his usual five or six tasks this morning.
The news comes just over a month before presidential elections, where he will face Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
Biden himself and his wife, Jill, tested negative today.
"I hope this serves as a reminder," Biden tweeted after the result. "Wear a mask, keep social distance, and wash your hands."
Other close members of Trump's family have tested negative.
Officials said the process of tracking all the president's contacts in recent days was ongoing, adding that Trump was considering how he might address the nation or otherwise communicate with the American people later today.
Yesterday, the first couple said they intended to self-isolate after one of Trump's closest aides, Hope Hicks, tested positive. Soon afterwards, they too received positive test results.
But there has been criticism of Trump's decision to go to a fundraiser attended by dozens of people in New Jersey on Thursday, apparently when officials already knew about Hicks's symptoms.
Hicks, 31, travelled with Trump on Air Force One to the first presidential TV debate with Biden in Ohio on Wednesday. Some of Trump's family members who attended the debate were seen not wearing masks.
Pence negative
Vice President Mike Pence, next in line for the Oval Office, has tested negative for Covid-19, hours after Trump announced that he was infected, Pence's spokesperson said.
Trump's test result cast a spotlight on Pence, a Christian conservative former lawmaker who has been one of the few constants in the Republican president's tumultuous administration, a little more than a month before the two seek re-election to a second term.
Vice President Mike Pence, next in line to Donald Trump, has tested negative to Covid-19. Photo: AFP
Pence, 61, is scheduled to debate his Democratic rival, Joe Biden's running mate Senator Kamala Harris on Wednesday (US time), and it was not immediately clear how or if Trump's positive test would change that plan.
"This morning, Vice President Pence and the Second Lady tested negative for Covid-19. Vice President Pence remains in good health and wishes the Trumps well in their recovery," spokesman Devin O'Malley said on Twitter.
Trump and Pence will work from separate residences, a White House official told Reuters, and their staffs will also be separated to protect Pence should he need to assume the duties of the presidency. Pence receives the same intelligence briefings as the president.
Pence would take over as acting president should Trump become incapacitated while undergoing medical treatment. That has happened three times in US history.
Then-President George W Bush temporarily transferred power to Vice President Dick Cheney twice, for a few hours each in 2002 and 2007, while undergoing colonoscopies. Vice President George H W Bush was acting president for nearly eight hours in 1985 while President Ronald Reagan had a pre-cancerous lesion removed.
Nancy Pelosi Photo: AP
The White House said Trump is "not incapacitated" and is working in isolation while experiencing mild symptoms.
House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi is next in line of succession after Pence. She said on Friday that she had been tested for Covid-19 and should know her results soon.
In response to Trump's positive diagnosis, she said: "This is tragic. It's very sad. ... Going into crowds unmasked and all the rest was sort of a brazen invitation for something like this to happen."
Pence, a former governor of Indiana, has played a largely behind-the-scenes role in Trump's White House, although he is known to have presidential ambitions of his own.
His deference has endeared him to Trump, helping Pence survive in a White House with near-constant turnover among top officials. But he has sometimes been ridiculed for his public obsequiousness to his boss.
Earlier this year Trump put Pence in charge of the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic, a brief that has not gone well. The nation's death toll from the virus is over 207,000. New cases of Covid-19 rose in 27 out of 50 US states in September compared with August, a Reuters analysis showed.
World leaders respond
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is among international leaders who have sent their best wishes to the Trumps. Johnson wrote on Twitter: "My best wishes to President Trump and the First Lady. Hope they both have a speedy recovery from coronavirus."
Other world leaders, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu, also sent messages of support to the couple.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said: "I am certain that your inherent vitality, good spirits and optimism will help you cope with this dangerous virus."
The president's niece, Mary Trump, who wrote a scathing book about her uncle, had this message: "I reserve my sympathy, empathy, and despair for those who are sick and for those who have died because they were misled, lied to, or ignored."
- BBC / Reuters
US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump have tested positive for Covid-19 after one of his closest aides tested positive for the coronavirus.
Photo: AFP
Trump tweeted to news out saying he and Melania had tested positive.
"We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately," he said.
"We will get through this TOGETHER!"
Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2020
Trump, who is tested regularly for the virus that causes Covid-19, has kept up a rigorous travel schedule across the country in recent weeks, holding rallies with thousands of people in the run-up to the November election, despite warnings from public health professionals against having events with large crowds.
In another tweet, Mrs Trump said the couple were "feeling good" and she had postponed all upcoming engagements.
As too many Americans have done this year, @potus & I are quarantining at home after testing positive for COVID-19. We are feeling good & I have postponed all upcoming engagements. Please be sure you are staying safe & we will all get through this together.
— Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) October 2, 2020
The pair were awaiting their own test results after Hope Hicks was infected.
The 31-year-old adviser to the president is the closest aide to Trump to test positive so far.
She travelled with him on Air Force One to a TV debate in Ohio earlier this week and was pictured getting off the presidential jet on Tuesday in Cleveland without a mask.
She was in even closer proximity to him aboard the presidential helicopter Marine One on Wednesday when the president held a rally in Minnesota.
US stock futures have plummeted after the news. Trump's positive result could cause a new wave or market volatility as investors brace for the hotly-contested election next month.
It is not clear how the quarantine will affect arrangements for the second presidential debate, which is scheduled for 15 October in Miami, Florida.
Trump mostly spurns mask-wearing and is often pictured not socially distanced with aides or others during official engagements.
According to Bloomberg News, Hicks was experiencing symptoms of the disease, and was quarantined on Air Force One on the trip back from Minnesota.
A White House official quoted by The Hill political news outlet said that contact tracing had been carried out "and the appropriate notifications and recommendations have been made".
Hicks is the latest White House aide to contract Covid-19. Vice-President Mike Pence's press secretary Katie Miller tested positive in May and recovered.
That same month, a member of the US Navy who was serving as one of Mr Trump's personal valets tested positive for coronavirus.
But the White House said neither the president nor vice-president were affected.
National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien, a number of Secret Service agents, a Marine One pilot and a White House cafeteria worker have also tested positive.
Hicks was a campaign spokeswoman during Trump's candidacy before becoming communications director in his White House.
She stepped down in March 2018 to become chief communications officer at Rupert Murdoch's Fox, before returning to the White House in February.
The coronavirus has infected more than 7.2 million Americans, killing more than 200,000 of them.
The White House tests aides and anyone else who comes into contact with the president daily.
- RNZ/BBC
Scotland's first minister says the actions of an SNP MP who travelled to Westminster despite experiencing Covid symptoms are "utterly indefensible".
MP Margaret Ferrier shares a moment with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon at a function in Dundee last December. Photo: AFP
Margaret Ferrier said she made the journey because she was feeling "much better" - but also returned home after getting a positive test result.
The Scottish National Party MP, who has been suspended by her party, said there was "no excuse for my actions".
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted her support for the decision to suspend the MP.
She said: "This is utterly indefensible. It's hard to express just how angry I feel on behalf of people across the country making hard sacrifices every day to help beat Covid.
"The rules apply to everyone and they're in place to keep people safe. @Ianblackford_MP is right to suspend the whip."
One of Ferrier's former SNP colleagues, Glasgow East MP David Linden, has also said she "should resign" as an MP.
Ferrier said she took a test on Saturday after experiencing "mild symptoms", but travelled to London on Monday as she felt better.
The MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West spoke in the coronavirus debate in the House of Commons on Monday, and said she received her positive test result that evening.
She then took a train back to Scotland on Tuesday.
Ferrier said she had informed the police and that she deeply regretted her actions.
"I travelled home by train on Tuesday morning without seeking advice. This was also wrong and I am sorry," she said.
"I have been self-isolating at home ever since."
Police confirm investigation
Police Scotland confirmed they had been contacted by Ferrier, saying officers were "looking into the circumstances" and liaising with the Metropolitan Police Service.
The SNP's Westminster leader Ian Blackford said he had spoken to Ferrier, who accepted that what she had done was wrong.
He said: "Margaret will be referring herself to the parliamentary standards commissioner as well as the police. I am tonight suspending the whip from Margaret."
The Covid-positive MP has been suspended by the SNP's Westminster leader Ian Blackford. Photo: AFP
House of Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle wrote to MPs on Thursday evening to say he was informed after Ferrier told the SNP whip on Wednesday afternoon that she had tested positive for Covid-19.
"The House authorities immediately took all necessary steps in line with their legal obligations and PHE [Public Health England] Guidance," he wrote.
"On the basis of the information supplied to the contact tracing system, only one individual has been identified as a close contact in relation to this case and is now self-isolating."
A House of Commons spokesperson said the House's priority was to ensure the safety of those working on the estate.
'Dangerous and disgraceful' - train drivers' union
Labour MP Ian Murray said Ferrier had shown "astonishing recklessness".
"She has put passengers, rail staff, fellow MPs, Commons staff and many others at unacceptable risk," he said.
"To breach the rules twice is simply unforgivable, and has undermined all the sacrifices made by her constituents."
Train drivers union Aslef described her actions as "both dangerous and disgraceful".
The Scottish Conservatives' Holyrood leader, Ruth Davidson, said knowingly taking public transport after testing positive for Covid-19 put lives at risk.
Ferrier was one of the MPs who called on the prime minister's adviser, Dominic Cummings, to resign in the wake of the controversy over his visit to the north east of England during lockdown.
At the time, she said his actions had "undermined the sacrifices that we have all been making" and described his position as "untenable".
One of US President Donald Trump's closet aides, Hope Hicks, has reportedly tested positive for coronavirus.
Hope Hicks. Photo: AFP / Getty
The adviser to the president travelled with Trump on Air Force One to a TV debate in Ohio on Tuesday.
She was in even closer quarters with him aboard the helicopter Marine One on Wednesday, White House reporters noted.
The 31-year-old would be the closest aide to Trump to test positive so far.
She was pictured getting off Air Force One on Tuesday in Cleveland without a mask. She travelled with the president a day later to a rally in Minnesota.
The White House tests aides and anyone else who comes into contact with the president daily.
See all RNZ coverage of Covid-19
Trump mostly spurns mask-wearing and is often pictured not socially distanced with aides or others during official engagements.
According to Bloomberg News, Hicks is experiencing symptoms of the disease, and was quarantined on Air Force One on the trip back from Minnesota.
But there was no indication the president himself has contracted the disease, which has infected more than 7.2 million Americans, killing over 200,000 of them.
White House spokesman Judd Deere did not confirm Hicks' medical condition.
But he said in a statement to US media: "The president takes the health and safety of himself and everyone who works in support of him and the American people very seriously."
Hicks would be the latest White House aide to contract Covid-19. Vice-President Mike Pence's press secretary Katie Miller tested positive in May and recovered.
That same month, a member of the US Navy who was serving as one of Trump's personal valets tested positive for coronavirus.
But the White House said neither the president nor vice-president were affected.
Hicks was a campaign spokeswoman during Trump's candidacy before becoming communications director in his White House.
She stepped down in March 2018 to become chief communications officer at Rupert Murdoch's Fox, before returning to the White House in February.
-BBC
Google plans to pay $US1 billion ($NZ1.5b) to publishers globally for their news over the next three years, its chief executive says.
Photo: 123RF / Anthony Brown
News publishers have long fought the world's most popular internet search engine for compensation for using their content, with European media groups leading the charge.
Chief executive Sundar Pichai said the new product called Google News Showcase will launch first in Germany, where it has signed up German newspapers including Der Spiegel, Stern, Die Zeit, and in Brazil with Folha de S.Paulo, Band and Infobae.
It will be rolled out in Belgium, India, the Netherlands and other countries. About 200 publishers in Argentina, Australia, Britain, Brazil, Canada and Germany have signed up to the product.
"This financial commitment - our biggest to date - will pay publishers to create and curate high-quality content for a different kind of online news experience," Pichai said in a blog post.
Google parent Alphabet reported a net profit of $US34.3b on revenue of almost $US162b last year.
The product, which allows publishers to pick and present their stories, will launch on Google News on Android devices and eventually on Apple devices.
"This approach is distinct from our other news products because it leans on the editorial choices individual publishers make about which stories to show readers and how to present them," Pichai said.
German publisher the Spiegel Group welcomed the project.
"With News Showcase and the new integration of editorial content like from Spiegel, Google shows that they are serious about supporting quality journalism in Germany. We are happy to be part of it from the start," said Stefan Ottlitz, managing director of the Spiegel Group.
News Corp, which has urged EU antitrust regulators to act against Google, was equally enthusiastic.
"We applaud Google's recognition of a premium for premium journalism and the understanding that the editorial eco-system has been dysfunctional, verging on dystopian. There are complex negotiations ahead but the principle and the precedent are now established," its chief executive, Robert Thomson, said in a statement.
The European Publishers Council (EPC), whose members include News UK, the Guardian, Pearson, the New York Times and Schibsted, however, was critical.
"By launching a product, they [Google] can dictate terms and conditions, undermine legislation designed to create conditions for a fair negotiation, while claiming they are helping to fund news production," said EPC executive director Angela Mills Wade.
Google is negotiating with French publishers, among its most vocal critics, while Australia wants to force it and Facebook to share advertising revenue with local media groups.
Google's funding for news organisations has frustrated other internet publishers, such as weather websites and recipe tools, which say Google has hurt their revenue.
- Reuters
The UK's refusal to ditch plans to override sections of its Brexit divorce deal has prompted the EU to start legal action.
The UK has a month to respond to the latest EU move, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says. Photo: AFP
An EU deadline for the government to remove sections of the Internal Market Bill expired on Wednesday.
The "letter of formal notice" could eventually lead to a court case against the UK at the European Court of Justice, the EU's top court.
But the EU has not walked away from talks over a post-Brexit trade deal.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the UK would have until the end of November to respond to the EU's concerns over the draft legislation.
UK-EU trade talks are continuing in Brussels this week. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said both sides should "move on" if a deal was not reached by mid-October.
In a brief statement, von der Leyen said the bill was a "full contradiction" of previous UK commitments over how a hard border on the island of Ireland should be avoided.
She added that the bill was by its "very nature a breach of the obligation of good faith" contained in the withdrawal agreement that took the UK out of the EU in January.
A spokesperson for the UK government said the bill was a necessary "safety net" to protect trade between different parts of the UK.
They added the government would respond the EU's letter "in due course".
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte appeared to play down the importance of the Commission's letter, calling the move "more administrative than political".
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer called for both the UK and EU to work together over trade differences, adding: "A deal can be done here".
"It's absurd that with weeks to go, the focus and the energy is not on their negotiations, it's on threatened court proceedings," he added.
The EU legal action is a distraction from the need to get a trade deal between the EU and the UK, Sir Keir Starmer says. Photo: AFP / WIktor Szymanowicz / NurPhoto
MPs gave their final backing to the Internal Market Bill earlier this week. However, it will have to be approved by the House of Lords before it becomes law.
In a bid to head off a potential rebellion from Tory backbenchers, ministers have granted the Commons a say before powers to override the Brexit divorce deal could be used.
The letter sent to the UK is the first stage in the process the Commission uses against countries it believes have broken EU law.
It can end with the Commission taking governments to court at the European Court of Justice.
The ECJ continues to have powers over the UK during the transition period, including over the interpretation and implementation of the withdrawal agreement.
The court has powers to force countries to comply with its rulings, including imposing financial penalties.
However, most cases are settled before then - and it can take many years for a case to move through the court.
The bill sets out rules for the operation of the UK internal market - trade between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - after the end of the Brexit transition period in January.
It proposes:
No new checks on goods moving from Northern Ireland to the rest of Great Britain
Giving UK ministers powers to modify or "disapply" rules relating to the movement of goods that will come into force from 1 January if the UK and EU are unable to reach an alternative agreement through a trade deal
Powers to override previously agreed obligations on state aid - government support for businesses.
The bill explicitly states that these powers should apply even if they are incompatible with international law.
Ministers say the legislation is needed to prevent "damaging" tariffs on goods travelling from the rest of the UK to Northern Ireland if negotiations with the EU on a free trade agreement fail.
- BBC
