Read Time: 3 Minutes
9/27
Coronavirus/COVID-19
- The U.S. reported 52,296 new cases and 866 additional deaths. There are 14,096 in critical condition.
- Coronavirus cases are on the rise in nearly half of the 50 states across the country, as the U.S. hits a seven-day average of over 43,000 new COVID-19 cases per day.
- Experts are warning that seemingly harmless interactions with close family and friends may be driving the spread of Covid. Children’s play dates and informal family get-togethers have been contributing to Covid-19 spikes nationwide.
- The New York Times surveyed more than 1,600 U.S. colleges and universities and found at least 130,000 cases of the coronavirus and at least 70 deaths since the pandemic began. Most of the cases have been announced since students returned to campus for the fall term.
- New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) announced that more than 1,000 people tested positive for the coronavirus in New York on Friday, marking the first time since early June the state has seen a daily number of cases spike to that mark.
- A coronavirus survey in Minnesota was stopped after multiple cases of residents “intimidating and shouting racial and ethnic slurs” at public health workers who had been going door to door, the state Department of Health said.
Protests/Racial & Social Issues
- Border Patrol agents have arrested a 15-year-old undocumented girl who has lived in the US since she was an infant, after she went to a Texas hospital for emergency gallbladder surgery.
- The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office will not pursue obstruction of justice charges against a reporter who was slammed to the ground and arrested while covering a protest, saying “she was almost immediately grabbed by deputies and taken to the ground giving her little if any time to comply.”
- A protester was struck by a pickup truck while participating in Los Angeles demonstrations calling for racial justice, after no charges were filed this week over the death of Breonna Taylor.
- A Michigan man pleaded guilty to targeting an African American woman because of her race and threatening to shoot her family at church last year.
Prosecutors said Wednesday that 22-year-old Ronald Wyatt admitted to targeting a woman identified. and “intentionally threatening physical harm” to her and obstructing her “free exercise of religion.”
- A new Hallmark Christmas movie “The Christmas House,” starring “Mean Girls’s” Jonathan Bennett, will focus on a gay couple “looking to adopt their first child.”
- New Jersey is on the brink of scrapping a controversial state law barring families receiving welfare from getting a larger stipend if the mother gives birth while receiving government benefits. The bill repealing the “family cap” law now heads to Gov. Phil Murphy’s desk.
Trump Administration
- President Trump officially nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat on the Supreme Court.
- Senate Republicans are preparing a speedy confirmation process for President Trump’s Supreme Court pick Amy Coney Barrett, setting up a final vote before Election Day on November 3.
- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi slammed President Trump’s decision to nominate Judge Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court on Saturday, calling the pick a threat to the Affordable Care Act and protections for Americans with pre-existing conditions.
“If this nominee is confirmed, millions of families’ health care will be ripped away in the middle of a pandemic that has infected seven million Americans and killed over 200,000 people in our country,” Pelosi added.
- James Herbert, an assistant US attorney for the District of Massachusetts, is accusing Attorney General William Barr of politicizing and bringing “shame” to the Justice Department.
“The attorney general acts as though his job is to serve only the political interests of Donald J. Trump. This is a dangerous abuse of power,” Herbert wrote in the Boston Globe.
Presidential Campaign
- The cast of HBO’s “Veep” is set to hold a virtual reunion next month to support Democrats in Wisconsin and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in the state.
- A number of current and former stars from the NBA and WNBA announced the beginning of a program aimed at registering young basketball fans to vote ahead of the November elections.
“Even though it’s only one vote, it’s important. One drop of water helps all the other drops create our oceans immense power,” said NBA star Alex English.
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
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