The Past 24 Hours or So

Read TIme: 8 Minutes

Coronavirus/COVID-19

• The U.S. reported 30,555 new cases and 386 additional deaths. 

• Children can and do transmit the coronavirus to members of their household, according to a new report by the CDC.

• Two Emory University doctors stressed the importance of getting a flu shot this year – to avoid what they call the “twindemic” of Covid-19 and influenza.

• Adults who tested positive for COVID-19 are twice as likely to have eaten at restaurants within the two week period prior to becoming sick, according to a new study from the CDC that suggests a link between dining out and contracting coronavirus.

• President Trump said he is not concerned about getting coronavirus at indoor campaign rallies because he speaks from a stage “very far away” from attendees.

• Former United States Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson said Monday that President Trump’s comments that “nothing more could have been done” to handle the coronavirus pandemic was “absurd.” 

“By mid-April here in the northeast in the New York-New Jersey area where I live, the densest part of the country, we knew how to flatten the curve,” Johnson said. “We knew how to slow the spread of the virus through aggressive physical distancing, through hygiene, wearing masks, but after April even though things slowed down here in the northeast, we had the spikes in the rest of the country simply because our national leadership, our President, allowed this to become a political issue.”

• Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s (D) pandemic restrictions that required people to stay at home, placed size limits on gatherings and ordered “non-life-sustaining” businesses to shut down are unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled Monday.

U.S. District Judge William Stickman IV, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, sided with plaintiffs that included hair salons, drive-in movie theaters, a farmer’s market vendor, a horse trainer and several Republican officeholders in their lawsuit against Wolf, a Democrat, and his health secretary.

• The people responsible for a weekly report released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been in “trench warfare” with Washington officials over the report’s scientific integrity, infectious disease specialist Dr. William Schaffner said.

• The House Oversight and Reform Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisisare is launching an investigation into the Trump administration’s political interference with the publication of scientific reports at the CDC.

The committee cited reporting from Politico that showed administration appointees have repeatedly interfered with the CDC’s reports on the pandemic, which are published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

• After several NFL coaches were seen not following league protocols for face coverings during Sunday’s Week 1 games, the league’s executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent responded by sending a memo to clubs Monday morning cautioning coaching personnel to wear their masks at all times.

• This year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade will be “reimagined” amid the coronavirus pandemic, with organizers opting to make the iconic holiday season kick-off event virtual instead of the traditional live parade.

• Asbury Park, NJ’s zombie walk,which usually happens the first Saturday in October on the Asbury Park Boardwalk, has been canceled.In past years, the event has been recognized by Guinness World Records as the largest gathering of zombies.

• The Smithsonian is expected to reopen four additional museums Friday since closing due to Covid-19.

• South Carolina Lt. Governor Pamela Evette (R) announced via Twitter that she has tested positive for Covid-19.

• Henderson, Nevada, the city where President Donald Trump held an indoor campaign rally, said Monday the venue owner is being fined $3,000 for violating coronavirus prevention mandates.

Protests/Racial & Social Issues

• Los Angeles is offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the gunman who shot two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies. 

Two deputies were “ambushed” while sitting in a patrol car on Saturday after a lone gunman shot at them. They remain hospitalized in critical condition.

• Hundreds of protesters flooded the streets of Lancaster, Pennsylvania late Sunday evening, with police deploying tear gas, as demonstrators responded in outrage over officers fatally shooting a man with a knife.

• Rochester, New York Mayor Lovely Warren has just announced she is firing the city’s chief of police and suspending its city attorney in the aftermath of the death of Daniel Prude in police custody in March.

• A Missouri police officer who fatally shot a woman during a traffic stop will not face charges, even after the officer’s claims that she was going to shoot him were contradicted by evidence that showed there was no gun in the car and she never owned a gun.

• Police have given more than 100 people head injuries with so-called less-lethal ammunition such as rubber bullets at protests this summer, according to a report from the group Physicians for Human Rights.

• Michael Cohen says the main reason for President Trump’s disdain former President Obama is his race, telling “The View” in a new interview, “why he despises him to the extent that he does, I believe it’s purely racial.”

“I believe it’s solely predicated on the fact that Barack Obama is Black.”

• Philanthropist Susan Sandler will invest $200 million in social justice organizations committed to fighting systemic racism and boosting turnout in underrepresented communities in battleground states. The investments will reportedly be carried out through the newly formed Susan Sandler Fund.

• Indianapolis Colts head coach Frank Reich took a knee during the national anthem on Sunday before his team’s season opener, later saying “white leaders really have an opportunity to step up” on the issue of social injustice.

“We thought it was a unique way to express what needs to be done, where someone like myself, a white leader, would kneel, not out of defiance but out of humility,” Reich told reporters. “We can’t leave things the way they are.”

“It takes all of us, everybody, but certainly white leaders really have an opportunity to step up and make a big change as far as systemic racism is concerned,” he added.

Colts players stood for the anthem with arms locked.

Trump Administration

• The Trump administration is looking to expand a ban on global health aid for foreign organizations that provide or promote abortions.

The proposed change would require that foreign organizations receiving global health aid through contracts from the U.S. government agree to not provide or promote abortions — even with funding from other sources.

• Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the country should not be focused on deficits as it struggles under the economic weight of the COVID-19 pandemic.

• The U.S. ambassador to China, Terry Branstad, will step down from his position and return from the country in October, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing announced Monday.

• A federal appeals court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to terminate a program that lets at least 300,000 immigrants live and work in the US.

In a 2–1 decision, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a preliminary injunction issued by US District Judge Edward Chen in 2018 that prevented the administration from ending temporary protected status for immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Sudan.

• Michael Caputo, the assistant secretary of public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services made outlandish and false accusations that career government scientists were engaging in “sedition” in their handling of the pandemic and that left-wing hit squads were preparing for armed insurrection after the election.

Caputo accused the CDC of harboring a “resistance unit” determined to undermine President Trump, even if that opposition bolsters the Covid-19 death toll.

Caputo, who has faced criticism for leading efforts to warp CDC weekly bulletins to fit Trump’s pandemic narrative, suggested that he personally could be in danger from opponents of the administration. “If you carry guns, buy ammunition, ladies and gentlemen, because it’s going to be hard to get,” he urged his followers.

He went further, saying his physical health was in question, and his “mental health has definitely failed.”

Mr. Caputo predicted that the president would win re-election in November, but that Joe Biden  would refuse to concede, leading to violence. “And when Donald Trump refuses to stand down at the inauguration, the shooting will begin.” he said. 

• The Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General is investigating the department’s intervention in the sentencing of Roger Stone, whose sentence was reduced drastically after President Trump tweeted about the sentencing and critics say the decision was based on the president’s personal friendship with Stone. 

Trump ultimately commuted Stone’s sentence in July before he was to report to prison.

Presidential Campaign

• The crowd at President Trump’s rally Sunday evening  in Henderson, Nevada chanted “lock him up” after the president accused his predecessor, former President Obama, of being caught “spying” on the 2016 Trump campaign, a claim for which there is no evidence.

• A day after President Trump held his first indoor rally in months, the Trump campaign swiped at Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s campaign for continuing to use virtual events during the coronavirus pandemic, suggesting Biden’s latest event shows “how low Virginians are on the Biden campaign’s priority list as all they could manage is a virtual event.”

• Kid Rock headlined a campaign rally for President Trump in Michigan on Monday.

• Nearly 200 environmental leaders signed an open leader on Monday urging like-minded voters to support Joe Biden in the November election instead of casting their ballots for the Green Party’s candidate.

• Howard Schultz, the former CEO of Starbucks, endorsed Democratic nominee Joe Biden in a Monday letter in which he called on Americans to vote “for the future of our republic.”

• President Trump signaled he would participate in a four-hour debate with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden moderated by Joe Rogan, despite such a format being likely impossible.

Trump shared a tweet from Tim Kennedy, a retired mixed martial artist, who wrote that Rogan, a comedian and mixed martial arts color commentator, offered during his podcast to moderate a four-hour debate between Trump and Biden without a live audience.

• The NAACP, in conjunction with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), announced a seven-figure radio ad buy that hits President Trump for his response to the coronavirus pandemic that has disproportionately affected communities of color.

The ads will run on Black radio stations in a handful of crucial swing states, including Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan and North Carolina.

• Facebook ignored or was slow to act on evidence that fake accounts on its platform have been undermining elections and political affairs around the world, according to an explosive memo sent by a recently fired Facebook employee and obtained by BuzzFeed News.

• A digital ad released by a fundraising arm of the Trump campaign on Sept. 11 calling on people to “support our troops” used a photo of Russian-made fighter jets and weapons.

• President Trump and Joe Biden’s takes on climate change appeared vastly different as the two presidential candidates visited California on Monday to discuss raging wildfires in the state. 

Biden called Trump a “climate arsonist” while Trump told a top official, without evidence, that the world would soon see “cooler” temperatures, adding “I don’t think science knows” it will get warmer.

• An analysis from The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School finds that the national debt would decrease and GDP would increase under Joe Biden’s plan compared to President Trump’s current laws by 2050.

• Samuel L. Jackson is promising his followers he will teach them how to swear in 15 different languages if enough of them go online to check their registration or register to vote.

Sources:  ABC News, Associated Press, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Chicago Tribune, Financial Times, Forbes,  Fox News,The Hill, Independent, MSNBC, NBC News, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post