this is g w news blind from berlin us coronavirus infections keep on soaring with the number of new cases topping 70000 for a 2nd consecutive day. the situation is drawing increasingly desperate in hospitals in florida now the state hit the worst by the pandemic will hear from our correspondent miami also coming up. european leaders seek common ground at a make or break summit in brussels they want to negotiate a 750000000000 euro package to help e.u. economies recover from the corona virus pandemic but divisions run deep.

and this is the table where the cold war began we look at the legacy of the past and conference 75 years later. i'm aaron tilton welcome to the program u.s. president donald trump says he will not mandate face coverings nationwide to slow the spread of the coronavirus trump says the public should be free to decide whether to wear them or not he made the comments to fox news as the u.s. recorded more than 70000 new infections for a 2nd consecutive day that's the highest number of daily cases since the beginning of the pandemic. as the virus marches on in the us public health professionals are begging people to wear masks and bite by social distancing

rules florida alone recorded over 11000 cases on friday with california texas and arizona following closely behind the nation's top infectious disease expert had this message i can say as a public health official that i would urge. the local political and other leaders in states and cities and towns to be as forceful as possible in getting your citizen tree to wear masks contact tracing is no longer possible in the worst affected areas because daily infection rates are so high many politicians including florida's republican governor rhonda sanchez are adamant about avoiding another shutdown relying instead on increased testing to bring the virus under control. but with intensive care units in the state filling to capacity it's already too late for that and health care workers will have to shoulder the burden

of being unable to save many lives and correspondent sean seaman's is in miami for us we're seeing new figures what's the situation like in miami. so duration is grim and as much as the figures today and now there are 11000 new coronavirus infection cases that's massive yesterday 15000. florida as a state has 20 percent more new coronavirus cases then arizona 70 percent more than texas double the amount of california so this is the absolute red zone here this is the worst case scenario in the last 4 weeks and for florida remember just a few months ago and this is like groundhog day here it was this governor and this state which came late to the game they closed down late and they opened early and

people forgot to wear this or were complacent and didn't think it was necessary to wear this mess we're back to masks the basics wear a mask when you're outside when you're inside and tracing and testing testing testing testing none of this has happened here within the last few months and this explains why the numbers in florida are so staggeringly high dangerously high because now tracing is not even possible anymore because the infection rates are daily so high. so what are you seeing on the ground how seriously are residents actually taking the pandemic precautions. i think they're beginning again to get their grip of how dangerous and prepare this whole situation for them is the. mayor of miami dade county issued now a a mandatory mask order for outside and inside so that means people in miami are supposed to wear a mask when they're outside doing their business on the ballot and inside but of

course how do you enforce this that's really really hot there's millions of people living in florida of course and then millions of those here in miami it is impossible to enforce this and i have to say so from what we say it's about 5050 we see a lot of people wearing masks but we see an equal amount of people who just don't care or don't seem to care at least for whatever reason that is. so give us a little bit of a bigger picture in florida what exactly is the state government proposing to do to get infection rates under control. while very good question and we talked to 2 doctors today and they said that basically begged us as a as a trans major to the public arena and around the world the please wear masks please wear a mask even if politicians don't agree on what to do and the governor has said he's not going to go back to shutdown anything so he's adamant about leaving things as they are opting upping testing opting health care workers and their support p. p.

e. and what have you even the army is here with personnel helping testing stations and so on but a shutdown is not going to happen here so what happens here is all on the shoulders of magic of health care professionals and they are begging people to practice social distancing and wear masks to the curb because that has not happened here and that was a correspondent stefan simons reporting from miami stuff on stay healthy. and now to some other stories making news around the world queen elizabeth has knighted captain tom moore britain's 100 year old veteran and fund raising hero sir tom became a national icon when he raised more than 33000000 pounds for health care workers by walking 100 laps of his garden it was one of the queen's 1st official duties since the coronavirus locked out. after

a 5 day manhunt german police have arrested a heavily armed fugitive in the country's black forest authorities launched a search for the 31 year old after he disarmed 4 officers at gunpoint and fled into the woods near the town of open now last sunday. anti-government protesters have staged a rally in the arabian city of babe they're angry about the state of the country's economy which is being hit hard by u.s. sanctions police later disperse the crowds and authorities cut internet access across the region as videos of the rallies spread online. while the fires continue to rage in siberia covering some cities in heavy smoke authorities are trying to contain the flames to prevent them from reaching residential areas northern siberia is seen a record breaking heat wave a new study says the unusually high temperatures would be almost impossible without human caused climate change. the european union leaders are meeting in

brussels to try to bridge their differences over a 750000000000 euro recovery fund which aims to help the bloc deal with the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. german chancellor angela merkel is chairing the talks as germany currently holds the e.u. is rotating presidency she's admitted that finding a compromise won't be easy the e.u. is divided on how to assist those hardest hit by the pandemic a major sticking point continues to be to what degree member states should share the debt burden the idea that you could mutual lies debt allowing the block to borrow money instead of individual nations has some member states dragging their heels. did have you corresponded mathes is at the summit in brussels which is the 1st face to face meeting of european leaders since the start of the coronavirus pandemic this was the 1st summit night with an unusual atmosphere of journalists and even many diplomats had to stay here outside of the europa building while

leaders were schmoozing and mingling inside so on a positive note they met in person they had a light lunch they had dinner lots of cookies and coffees over numerous bilateral meetings but all of this could not paper over the cracks between e.u. countries when it comes to the rescue package the idea of mutual ice that is so radically new so revolutionary that it'll take more than a warm summer night or even an all nighter to get the deal across the line the foundations of post-war europe were put in place by a meeting that took place 75 years ago among the rubble of the 2nd world war the potsdam conference brought together the leaders of the us the soviet union and britain they negotiated for more than 2 weeks deciding the future of a defeated germany and redrawing the borders of eastern europe a new exhibition looks at the far reaching consequences and it features many original mementos from the talks this large round table was made especially for the

conference an intact piece like this didn't exist in rwanda potsdam in july 945 around it joseph stalin how to truman and winston churchill shaped a new germany. in meissen. they were broadly in agreement on most points like the democratization and centralization of germany as well as it's not sophistication but there was a different understanding of things in east and west. the exhibition at to see palace shows not only the historic venue but also the consequences of the conference for germany europe and the world and potsdam stalin's plan to shift poland territorially to the west was signed off resulting in the displacement of millions of poles and germans. so. it was important for us to show that only a handful of people really only 3 along with their advisors decided the fate of

millions who had no say they just had to do what was agreed to. this today it's clear the potsdam conference signaled the start of the cold war as the big 3 smiled for the camera the weapons race had already begun. porter simon bowen is here to help give us some more perspective on the potsdam conference simon the past some conference marked the end of one conflict and the beginning of another didn't it that's right aaron it showed what what a difference just a few months could make this was the 3rd major conference between the big 3 powers and it was the 1st after the war and thus the 1st without a common enemy and that's where things started to go wrong in terms of working together. the the result ready eastern europe practically in the hands of the soviet union stalin was under in control of much of the continent and there was very little the western powers to do about that. all they could really

talk about was the future of germany and much of watch transpired there actually took place and could be seen as the foundation of the modern german state they had a list of several things all of which began with d.d. not sophistication democratisation decentralisation but there was another word division that hadn't been planned the soviets and the western powers simply couldn't work together and ended up not being able to as they'd hoped. administer the country together and so they ended up dividing the country into 2 it's been 75 years since the end of the conference why is it still relevant today well. obviously were momentous geo political decisions made there concerning not only countries like poland which had completely new borders drawn for it and for japan during the conference president truman learned of the existence of the

success of the atomic bomb and. at the end of the conference they threatened japan with. with severe consequences if they chose not to surrender and of course we know what happened. but it probably tells us more about the limitations of diplomacy. we've seen in brussels just these past 2 days the european countries. have ingrates just agreements over the coronavirus well here they were negotiating with a dictator with completely different viewpoints and completely different ambitions and. because of this the western powers came together and worked on things like nato and the european union in order to counter this so perhaps that was the long they had the failures of the conference were perhaps its greatest legacy. i mean bone thank you for that i tell you police help for the plot to smuggle cocaine into the country in of all places coffee beans police at milan's airport

set a package of colombia's finest attracted their attention because it was marked with the name of a fictional mafia boss inside were 500 coffee beans that had been cut open and stuffed with cocaine police tracked the package to florence and arrested the intended recipient it's not the 1st time smugglers have tried to use coffee to throw police off the scent in january last year a telling authorities seized more than 600 kilograms of cocaine hidden in sacks of coffee from honduras. this is d.w. news here's a reminder of our top story at this hour. the united states has registered more than 70000 corona virus infections for a 2nd consecutive day that's the highest level yet since the beginning of the pandemic florida has become the new at the center of the outbreak. there washington news i'm aaron tilton in berlin and remember you can always get

the latest a d w dot com and don't forget to follow us on twitter and instagram at deed of units america once again thanks for watching. and this is some dope story a stubborn rice farmer from thailand. his problem pests.