US actress Lori Loughlin, of the sitcom Full House, and her husband, designer Mossimo Giuannulli, will plead guilty to college admissions scam charges. They are among 50 people charged in an alleged criminal enterprise to get their children into top US schools.

The couple had initially pleaded not guilty to the fraud charges. Officials say they have agreed to a plea deal of prison time, a fine, and community service under supervised release. According to the District Attorneys office in Massachusetts, Ms Loughlin will plead guilty to conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud “on a date to be specified by the Court”. Mr Giannulli will plead guilty to the same, plus one count of honest services wire and mail fraud.

Prosecutors had said Ms Loughlin and Mr Giannulli paid $500,000 (£408,000) in bribes to have their two daughters admitted into the University of Southern California (USC) as fake rowing-team recruits.(BBC)…[+]

The owner of a pizza restaurant in the US has discovered the DoorDash delivery app has been selling his food cheaper than he does – while still paying him full price for orders. A pizza for which he charged $24 (£20) was being advertised for $16 on DoorDash – and when he secretly ordered it himself, the app paid his restaurant the full $24 while charging him $16.

He had not asked to be put on the app. He later found out it was part of a trial to gauge customer demand. Content strategist Ranjan Roy blogged about the anonymous restaurateur, who is his friend. Mr Roy said he first heard about the situation in March 2019, when his friend started receiving complaints about deliveries, even though his outlets did not deliver. At that point , he discovered he had been added to DoorDash – and noticed it was charging a lower price for one of his premium pizzas.(BBC)…[+]

President Donald Trump has argued it is “a badge of honour” that the US has the world’s highest number of confirmed Covid-19 infections. “I look at that as, in a certain respect, as being a good thing because it means our testing is much better,” he said at the White House. The US has 1.5 million coronavirus cases and nearly 92,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. In second place is Russia, with nearly 300,000 confirmed cases. 

On Monday, Mr Trump was hosting his first cabinet meeting since the US outbreak began. “By the way,” he told reporters, “you know when you say that we lead in cases, that’s because we have more testing than anybody else.” “So when we have a lot of cases,” he continued, “I don’t look at that as a bad thing, I look at that as, in a certain respect, as being a good thing because it means our testing is much better.” He added: “So I view it as a badge of honour. Really, it’s a badge of honour.

“It’s a great tribute to the testing and all of the work that a lot of professionals have done.” According to the Centers for Disease Control, a federal agency, the US had conducted 12.6m coronavirus tests by Tuesday.(BBC)…[+]

About 10,000 residents have been evacuated in the US state of Michigan after two dams collapsed following days of heavy rain, officials say. The National Weather Service issued a flash flood emergency for areas near the Tittabawassee River after the Edenville and Sanford dams burst.

Parts of Midland, a city some 140 miles (209 km) of Detroit, could be under 9ft (2.7m) of water, authorities said. Dow chemical company, which is based in the city, has set up emergency steps. Governor Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency for Midland County in mid-Michigan after the dams collapsed on Tuesday, and said the city of Midland – of population of more than 40,000 – could see a “historic high water level”. “This is unlike anything we’ve seen in Midland County,” Ms Whitmer said at a news conference. “To go through this in the midst of a global pandemic is almost unthinkable.”(NU)…[+]

EasyJet has admitted that a “highly sophisticated cyber-attack” has affected approximately nine million customers.

It said email addresses and travel details had been stolen and that 2,208 customers had also had their credit card details “accessed”. The firm has informed the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office while it investigates the breach. EasyJet first became aware of the attack in January. It told the BBC that it was only able to notify customers whose credit card details were stolen in early April. “This was a highly sophisticated attacker. It took time to understand the scope of the attack and to identify who had been impacted,” the airline told the BBC. “We could only inform people once the investigation had progressed enough that we were able to identify whether any individuals have been affected, then who had been impacted and what information had been accessed.”(BBC)…[+]