Florida police have raided the home of data scientist Rebekah Jones, who built the state’s official Covid-19 database. Ms Jones has accused the US Department of Health of manipulating virus data in order to relax pandemic restrictions. She posted a series of videos of the raid on Twitter, in which armed officers seized her phone and laptop. The force said it was responding to a hack of the state’s emergency health alert system, which Ms Jones denies. Ms Jones was fired from her job at the Department of Health in May after making her accusations, and has since maintained her own database, independently tracking the spread of the virus.

At the time, a spokesperson for the department described her as “disruptive”. In the hack, which is said to have taken place in early November, an unauthorised message was sent to members of the emergency response team urging them to “speak up” before thousands more people died from Covid-19. The message was obtained by the Tampa Bay Times.(BBC)…[+]

US President-elect Joe Biden has chosen retired General Lloyd Austin as his defence secretary, US media report. If approved, the 67-year-old who retired in 2016 would become the first African-American to lead the Pentagon. He would need a congressional waiver as seven years are required between active duty and becoming military chief. Mr Biden has been facing calls including from Democratic Asian, Black and Latino caucuses to nominate minorities to senior cabinet posts. Veteran Pentagon official Michèle Flournoy, who would have been the first woman to hold the position, had also been considered a front-runner – as well as Jeh Johnson, a former Pentagon general counsel and former secretary of homeland security.(BBC)…[+]