FILE - In this June 1, 2020, file photo, protesters rally as Philadelphia Police officers and Pennsylvania National Guard soldiers look on in Philadelphia, over the death of George Floyd, a black man who was in police custody in Minneapolis. Still reeling from the coronavirus pandemic and street protests over the police killing of Floyd, exhausted cities around the nation are facing yet another challenge: A surge in recent shootings has left dozens dead, including young children. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)
The Associated Press
Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today:
1. WHERE TEXAS VIRUS SURGE IS HITTING HARD A small hospital in north Houston may soon fully turn over its 117-bed facility to coronavirus patients, AP finds.
2. '~GUNSLINGER MEDICINE' NOT SOUND SCIENCE Scientific shortcuts have slowed understanding of COVID-19 and delayed the ability to find out which drugs help, hurt or have no effect at all.
3. '~PERFECT STORM OF DISTRESS IN AMERICA' Experts point to high unemployment, the viral pandemic, stay-at-home orders and rising anger over police brutality as possible reasons for a surge in violent crime in America.
4. WHAT'S NEXT AS MONUMENTS, STATUES FALL Activists and towns are left wondering what to do with empty spaces that once honored historic figures tied to Confederate generals and Spanish conquistadors.
5. MARY KAY LETOURNEAU DEAD AT 58 The former suburban Seattle teacher became tabloid fodder when she pleaded guilty in 1997 to raping her former sixth-grade student, a boy she later married.
Dr. Joseph Varon, center, visits with Dorothy Webb, left, and her daughter, Tammie, while making his rounds inside the Coronavirus Unit at United Memorial Medical Center, Monday, July 6, 2020, in Houston. Varon says he has worked more than 100 days with barely a rest and normally sleeps just a few hours a night. When he isn't seeing patients or trying to obtain more hospital supplies, he does media interviews to try to warn people to wear masks and take the virus seriously. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
The Associated Press
Doris Kelly, 57, sits in her home on Monday, June 29, 2020 in Ruffs Dale, Pa. Kelly was one of the first patients in a UPMC trial for COVID-19. 'It felt like someone was sitting on my chest and I couldn't get any air,' Kelley said of the disease. (AP Photo/Justin Merriman)
The Associated Press
In this Nov. 24, 2019 photo, a sculpture of former slave and later abolitionist, writer Olaudah Equiano by London based artist Christy Symington, sits on display at the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool, England, Britain. Activists and towns in the U.S. are left wondering what to do with empty spaces that once honored historic figures tied to racism as statues and monuments fell in June 2020. The Equiano image has been suggested as a replacement. (AP Photo/Russell Contreras)
The Associated Press
FILE - In this July 20, 1997, file photo, Mary Kay Letourneau holds the baby, in Normandy Park, Wash., that was fathered by a boy she once taught as an elementary school teacher. Letourneau, who married her former sixth-grade student after she was convicted for raping him, has died. She was 58. Her lawyer David Gehrke told news outlets Letourneau died Tuesday, July 7, 2020, of cancer. The former suburban Seattle teacher was arrested in 1997 after she became pregnant with Vili Fualaau's child. She later pleaded guilty to second-degree child rape. (Betty Udesen/The Seattle Times via AP, File)
The Associated Press