The Weekly Town Crier (10/16/20)

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All the week’s news that’s fit to cry about (10/16/20).



We’ll Miss You:

Read “Baseball Hall of Famer Joe Morgan dies at 77” at ESPN.

Religion and Stuff:

Read “5 Ways Your Predominantly White Church Can Work for Racial Justice and Reconciliation” at Missio Alliance.

Read “I was in the pro-life movement. But then, widowed with 6 kids, I prepared for an abortion” at USA Today. “The pro-life movement's caricatures make for good propaganda but terrible policy. People, real people, become pregnant.”

Read “One Jehovah’s Witness acquitted in Russia as others get months of restrictions” at Religion News Service.

Read “God intended it as a disposable planet’: meet the US pastor preaching climate change denial” at The Conversation. “Every so often you come across a piece of writing so extraordinary that you cannot help but share it. One such piece is a sermon on global warming by American pastor John MacArthur. Full of beautifully constructed rhetorical flourishes, it is forcefully delivered by an experienced and impassioned preacher to a large and appreciative audience.”

Read “Jesus Christ, Superspreader?” at Rolling Stone. “Preacher-musician Sean Feucht stages Nashville concert, ignoring Covid-19 precautions.”

Read “Vatican takes step toward making teen youngest contemporary person declared a saint” at The Hill.

Read “How will the post-pandemic church pay the bills?” at Religion News Service.

Read “The Fundamentalist War on Wokeness is a War on Christian Love” at Patheos.

Read “CRT: conservative evangelicalism’s latest Marxist chimaera” at Faith, Philosophy, and Politics.

Read “Investigation into Allegations Against Chris Rice” at Tates Creek Presbyterian Church.

Read “Trump refuses to disavow QAnon conspiracy theory” at Financial Times.

Legal/Justice and Social Justice and Race or Gender or Sexism-Related Stuff:

Read “Militia group plan to kidnap Whitmer was part of attempt to start civil war” at The Hill.

  • Read “13 charged by state, feds in plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer” at WXYZ.

Read “Graham says SC people of color can go anywhere in the state but 'need to be conservative, not liberal' at The Hill. “I care about everybody, if you’re a young African American or an immigrant, you can go anywhere in this country,” Graham said. “You just need to be conservative, not liberal.”

Read “In this LA neighborhood, residents unite to bless one of its most sacred murals” at Religion News Service. “On a recent Sunday afternoon, more than 100 people gathered at a northeast Los Angeles intersection to honor what some refer to as the neighborhood’s most sacred mural.”

Read “We have a story to tell: Indigenous scholars, activists speak up amid toppling of Serra statues” at Religion News Service.

Read “The All-American Mind of a Militia Member” at The New Republic. “I’ve spent years with men like the ones charged in a Michigan plot to kidnap the governor. They aren’t outsiders—they’re intimate products of American democracy.”

Read “Early voting begins in Georgia with long lines, high turnout” at NBC News. “Race is one of the strongest predictors of how long a person waits in line to vote, research shows.”

Listen to “No Compromise” at NPR. “Discover a social media empire with an unapologetic vision of gun rights—generating millions of likes, follows, and dollars. From Guns & America, reporters Lisa Hagen of WABE and Chris Haxel of KCUR expose how three brothers from the most uncompromising corner of the gun debate are turning hot-button issues into donations and controversy.”

Read “Mexico says 2 women may have had nonconsensual surgery in ICE detention” at NBC News. “Mexico said it has identified two women who may have been operated on without their consent while they were detained by U.S. immigration authorities.”

Read “Giffords launches national Gun Owners for Safety group to combat the NRA” at The Hill.

  • Read “I’m a Teenage Biathlete Who Grew Up Shooting. Here’s Why I Support Gun Safety Laws.” at Giffords.Org.

This week in traitorous, white-supremacist Confederate monuments (and/or Columbus monuments // and/or other “American monuments” // and/or weird Confederacy stuff):

Read “SBTS trustees retain building names, address history, establish $5 million scholarship for African American students” at SBTS.

  • Read “Al Mohler Needs to Say Their Names” at Word and Way.

This Week With The Police:

Read “11-Year Old Boy Busted For Jacking School Bus . . . Went on JoyRide, Cops Say” at TMZ.

Your Weekly Coronavirus Roundup:

Read “Despite a Strong COVID-19 Rebound, China Isn't Going Back to Normal Anytime Soon” at Time.

Read “Harris Says Covid Aid Should Be Senate Priority” at Bloomberg.

Read “Maynard James Keenan Had COVID-19” at Spin. "It was ugly," Tool/A Perfect Circle/Puscifer frontman says.

Read ‘Chris Christie has been hospitalized with COVID-19 for a week. That’s not unusual for this disease, doctors say” at NJ.com.

Read “Fox News Doctor To Examine Trump, And Twitter Users Jokingly ‘Leak’ Footage” at Huff Post. “Trump’s televised medical exam will be as honest and transparent as Trump’s taxes,” one Twitter user promised.”

Read “As a pandemic presses on, waves of grief follow its path” at Associated Press. “In a strong voice tinged with her Irish homeland, Fiona Prine talks hauntingly about loss. From her COVID-19 infection and isolation — self-imposed in hopes of sparing her husband, folk-country legend John Prine — to his own devastating illness and death, she’s had more than her share in this year like no other.”

Read “Is There a Safe Way to Be Home for the Holidays?” at The Atlantic. “Throughout the pandemic, Americans have been tempted to violate public-health experts’ recommendations. The winter holidays might be the strongest temptation yet.”

Read “A Redding Megachurch Leader Came to Humboldt and Flouted Mask Rules. Her Ministry is Now the Source of a Major COVID Outbreak.” at Lost Coast Outpost.

Read “CDC optimistic coronavirus vaccines will be released by end of the year” at CNN.

Read “Alabama Coach Nick Saban Tests Positive for Covid-19 as Virus Disrupts SEC” at Wall Street Journal.

Read “Putin Announces Approval Of A Second Unproven Coronavirus Vaccine” at NPR.

Read “Oxford researchers develop rapid COVID-19 test capable of producing results in under five minutes” at The Hill.

Read “Jetliner Cabins Are Quickly Cleared of Virus, Pentagon Says” at Bloomberg.

Read “OSHA Doesn’t Expect Employers To Report COVID-19 Hospitalizations Anymore” at Huff Post.

Miscellany Cultural Items:

Read “California Will Keep Burning. But Housing Policy Is Making It Worse.” at Pro Publica.

Read “How Airbnb Pulled Back From the Brink” at Wall Street Journal. “Lessons from the home-sharing giant’s near-death experience: Focus on the core business, keep expenses low and listen to customers.”

Read “Facebook removes hundreds of fake profiles tied to pro-Trump group” at The Guardian.

Read “Removing Holocaust Denial Content” at Facebook.

Read “An Ethical Computer-Repair Shop Wouldn’t Do That to Hunter Biden” at Slate. “The New York Post’s controversial “scoop” involves some shady behavior by a laptop repairman.’

Read “NBC Actors, Producers Protest Network’s Decision to Host Trump Town Hall at Same Time as Biden’s ABC Event” at Wall Street Journal.

Read “Twitter Changes Course After Republicans Claim ‘Election Interference’” at New York Times.

Internationalities:

Read “Vietnam flood death toll rises as storm Nangka dumps more rain” at Al Jazeera.

Politics And Sucheries:

Read “Biden Campaign Continues To Deflect On Court-Packing” at NPR.

Read “Biden Affirms: “I Will Eliminate Your Student Debt” at Forbes.

Read “Why the Affordable Care Act Is Such a Hot Topic” at Wall Street Journal.

Read “'Courts Are Not Designed To Solve Every Problem,' Barrett To Say In Opening Statement” at NPR.

Read “Marjorie Taylor Greene spars with GOP lawmaker over QAnon, antifa” at The Hill.

Read “The battle over a Texas order limiting ballot drop-off locations, explained” at Vox.

Read “Texas surpassed 1 million votes on first day of early voting” at Houston Chronicle.

Read “Ice Cube Clarifies Role in Helping Trump Admin Develop ‘Platinum Plan’” at Rolling Stone.

Read “Senate committee sets Oct 22 confirmation vote” at Al Jazeera.

This Week In Political Corruption:

Read “Williamson nurse charged after shooting woman in abdomen” at WCHSTV.

Read “White House Refuses to Say if Trump Still Contagious Before First Event Since Diagnosis” at Slate.

Read “Trump Told Supporters to ‘Watch’ Voting. His Staff Is More Than Watching" at New York Times.

Read “Mike Pompeo: Clinton emails could be released before election” at New York Post.

Read “California elections officials order GOP to immediately remove unofficial ballot boxes” at Los Angeles Times.

Read “Supreme Court allows Trump administration to end census count” at Politico. “A federal judge had ordered the Census Bureau to continue enumeration until Oct. 31.”

Read “As Virus Spread, Reports of Trump Administration’s Private Briefings Fueled Sell-Off” at New York Times. “On Feb. 24, Trump's economic team privately addressed the Hoover Institution and implied that a COVID outbreak could prove worse than advisers were signaling to the public. Aides appeared to be giving wealthy party donors an early warning.”

Music-Related News and Such:

Read “Juice WRLD’s Mother Pens Open Letter About Son’s Struggles for World Mental Health Day” at Rolling Stone.

Read “The Haunting of Slint’s “Good Morning, Captain” at Treble.

Read “Anatomy of a Sound: Garcia Peoples” at Inside Hook. “These are the songs fueling one of the best new jam bands around.”

Read “The Best Tenor Player In the World; Pharaoh Sanders at 80” at Los Angeles Times. “Just let the music come, and spend as much time as you can listening.”

Read “Crass Walks Us Through Their Entire Bandcamp Discography” at Bandcamp.

Watch “Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires Cover John Prine’s ‘Storm Windows’” at Rolling Stone.

See “‘In My Room’ With Thurston Moore” at Rolling Stone. “Musician performs mostly instrumental versions of songs off his latest solo effort, By the Fire.”

Read “Jeff Tweedy Wants To Teach You How To Write One Song” at Uproxx.

Read “The Mountain Goats Post New Song Picture Of My Dress” at StereoBoard.

Browse “From Brian Eno to Sufjan Stevens: A playlist of chill out music to keep you calm” at Far Out Magazine.

Read “The Flaming Lips: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert” at NPR.

Watch “Bill Callahan & Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy cover Hank Williams Jr w/ Matt Sweeney” at Brooklyn Vegan.

Read “The Age Of Adz Turns 10” at Stereogum.

Read “On Leaders And Leadership - A Conversation With Chuck D” at The Quietus.

Read “Jerry David DeCicca — The Unlikely Optimist and His Domestic Adventures (This Is a Self-Release)” at Dusted.

Read “How to Handle the Hate in America’s Musical Heritage” at New York Times.

Read “David Crosby apologizes for “not cool” Eddie Van Halen tweet” at Brooklyn Vegan.

Read “Sturgill Simpson to Release First Bluegrass Album ‘Cuttin’ Grass Vol. 1′” at Rolling Stone.

Read “Jimmy Page says he “reconnected with guitar” during lockdown” at Guitar World.

Read “Texas Punk Rock, Straight From the Pit” at New York Times.

Read “Yo La Tengo :: We Have Amnesia Sometimes/Sleepless Night” at Aquarium Drunkard.

Read “An Oral History Of Tom Petty’s Landmark 1994 Album, ‘Wildflowers’” at Uproxx.

Read “Remembering the Original Knitting Factory” at JazzTimes. “Owners and musicians tell the story of the New York jazz club that defined "downtown".

Read “Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill Musical Leads Tony Awards with 15 Nominations” at Consequence of Sound.

Movies/TV/Video Games/Etc.:

Read “HBO to Develop Scripted Series About Elon Musk’s SpaceX” at Variety.

Read “C-SPAN's Steve Scully suspended after admitting to lying about Twitter hack” at The Hill.

Books/Reading/Authors

Read “Five Indigenous SFF Authors You Should Be Reading” at TOR.com.

  • Browse “Honoring Indigenous Peoples: 20 Recommended Reads” at New York Public Library.

  • Browse “10 Native North American Women Writers To Read This Fall” at Book Riot.

  • Read “Bookworms, How Many Of These Classic Books By Indian Authors Have You Read?” at BuzzFeed.

Read “Alan Moore Gives Rare Interview: ‘Watchmen’ Creator Talks New Project ‘The Show’, How Superhero Movies Have “Blighted Culture” & Why He Wants Nothing To Do With Comics” at Deadline.

Browse “5 books not to miss: 'Culture Warlords' by Talia Lavin, P. Djèlí Clark's 'Ring Shout'“ at USA Today.

Read “Every page makes you hungry': 20 chefs pick their favourite starter cookbooks” at The Guardian.

Local:

Read “Interim Tempe Police Chief Glover to be sworn in at city council meeting” at KTAR.

The Weekly Town Crier (10/09/20)

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All the week's news that's fit to cry about (10/09/20).

We’ll Miss You:

Read “Helen Reddy Dies at 78; Sang ‘I Am Woman’” at New York Times. ”The Australian-born singer’s first No. 1 hit became a feminist anthem and propelled her to international stardom.”

Read “Eddie Van Halen Dead at 65” at TMZ.

Religion and Stuff:

Read “QAnon Is Going After Members of Congress Now” at Slate. “It’s not every day,” says Rep. Tom Malinowski, “that the fake and likely nonexistent guru of a conspiracy-mongering cult personally attacks you.”

  • Read “Facebook bans QAnon across its platforms” at NBC News. “The change is a significant escalation over its previous actions targeting QAnon and one of the broadest rules the social media giant has put in place in its history.” Facebook "will remove Facebook Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts for representing QAnon" like any other militarized social movement, militia or terror group.

  • Read “QAnon leaders look to rebrand after tech crack downs” at NBC News. “The shift in tactics comes the same week as Twitter released new data stating that their ban on QAnon-related accounts was severely limiting the reach of the conspiracy theory.”

Read “Stop telling Black people to pray for Donald Trump” at Religion News Service. "Refusing to pray for our anti-Black oppressor-in-chief is logical, human and prophetic."

Read “Justices Thomas, Alito Blast Supreme Court Decision On Same-Sex Marriage Rights” at NPR.

Watch “Why Do People Join Cults? An Animated Primer Explains” at Open Culture.

Listen to “Faith in the modern world” at BBC. “Marilynne Robinson and Rowan Williams discuss faith and humanity with Andrew Marr.”

Read “Four years ago, Donald Trump’s infamous brag about sexually assaulting women made the news. I wrote this then and, sadly, these words are still needed today: Call Out Locker Room Talk for the Sin That It Is” by Karen Swallow Prior at Christianity Today (from 2016).

Legal/Justice and Social Justice and Race or Gender or Sexism-Related Stuff:

Read “The Turmoil Over ‘Black Lives Matter’ and Political Speech at Coinbase” at Wired. “The CEO of the cryptocurrency pioneer declared political discussions out of bounds—then gave employees a week to agree or leave.”

Read “DOJ Frees Federal Prosecutors To Take Steps That Could Interfere With Elections, Weakening Long-Standing Policy” at Huff Post. “The Justice Department created an exception to a decadeslong policy meant to prevent prosecutors from taking overt investigative steps that might affect the outcome of the vote.”

This Week In Protest-Related News:

Read “Fannie Lou Hamer’s Dauntless Fight for Black Americans’ Right to Vote” at Smithsonian. “The activist did not learn about her right to vote until she was 44, but once she did, she vigorously fought for black voting rights.”

Read “We just want to go home’” at Chicago Reader. “CPD’s violent response to a student-led protest downtown and what it says about this moment in our history”

This Week With The Police:

Read “NYPD Threatens Disciplinary Action For Officers Who Don’t Wear Face Masks” at New York CBS.

Read “MCSO deputy admits to having sex with domestic violence victim” at AZ Family.

Read “Four Austin Women Reported Their Sexual Assaults. But Police and Prosecutors Failed To Hold The Perpetrators Accountable” at The Appeal. “While a debate over defunding the police rages in Austin, a new lawsuit reminds its residents that assault cases in the city are routinely ignored.”

Read “Trump’s Favorite Texas Sheriff Faces Re-Election Amid a Spike in Deaths at His Jail” at Texas Observer. “Conservative media have turned Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn into a right-wing celebrity despite a long list of scandals on his watch.”

Read “Former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin Is Released On $1 Million Bond” at NPR.

Education and The Learnings // School Re-Openings

Read “The Students Left Behind by Remote Learning” at Pro Publica.

Your Weekly Coronavirus Roundup:

Read “White House wanted to keep Hope Hicks's positive COVID-19 test private” at The Hill.

  • Read “Nine people in President Trump’s inner circle test positive for coronavirus” at Yahoo.

  • Read “Chris Christie is the latest in Trump circle to get virus” at Yahoo.

  • Read “They want to kiss": Trump appears to blame troops and cops for spreading virus to his inner circle” at Yahoo.

  • Read “China's President and other leaders react to Trump coronavirus diagnosis” at MSNBC.

  • Read “Drugmaker says White House doctor described Trump treatment inaccurately” at NBC News.

  • Read “Dozens Of Secret Service Agents Get COVID During Trump’s Travels” at KHN.

  • Read “Covering a cover-up in real time” at Axios. “What is the actual state of President Trump's health?”

  • Read “Trump returns to comparing COVID-19 to the flu: 'We have learned to live with it'“ at Yahoo.

  • Read "GOP Sen. John Cornyn Criticizes Trump On COVID-19: 'A Lesson To All Of Us' at Yahoo.

Read “GOP Sen. Ron Johnson Went to Oktoberfest Party While Awaiting COVID-19 Test Results” at Daily Beast.

Read “Fearing 2nd Wave, N.Y.C. Will Adopt Restrictions in Hard-Hit Areas” at New York Times. ““Today, unfortunately, is not a day for celebration,” the mayor said of rising virus rates. His plan would affect 20 neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens.”

Read “US Department of Transportation rejected mask mandate on public transportation” at The Hill. “A spokesperson said the department has sufficient mandates already in place.”

Read “White House not contact tracing Rose Garden event considered possible 'superspreader'“ at The Hill.

Read “Senior Pentagon leadership quarantining after exposure to coronavirus” at CNN.

Miscellany Cultural Items:

Read “Everything to know about the Melania Trump secret recordings” at Yahoo.

Read “The Ultra-Rich Are Using Giant Home Loans to Access Cheap Credit” at Bloomberg. “JPMorgan has issued a $42.5 million loan on a New York penthouse owned by a Russian billionaire’s family.”

Read “Regal Movie Chain Will Close All 536 U.S. Theaters On Thursday” at NPR.

Read “Former MLB player Charles Haeger, suspected in ex-girlfriend's killing, found dead at Grand Canyon” at NBC News.

Read “The Thought Leaders Issue: Mariah Carey” at V Magazine. “The singer talks identity politics, Black Lives Matter, and health care access.” "We’ve been socialized to believe that poverty is a personal failure rather than our systems failing us."

Internationalities:

Read “When the US Became a Rogue State in the Middle East” at Lit Hub. “Noam Chomsky on War with Iran, Both Covert and Overt.” “The US is alone in its ability to impose sanctions. That is a bipartisan consensus freely exercised for many years."

Read “'Zero tolerance' of abuse in aid sector failing to have an impact, MPs told” at The Telegraph. “Governments must do more to stamp out 'culture of impunity' that has allowed peacekeepers to escape punishment for sexual abuse.”

Read “Golden Dawn guilty verdicts celebrated across Greece” at The Guardian. “Ex-leader and MPs found guilty after biggest trial of fascists since Nuremberg.”

Read “How a Chinese company took control of an entire nation’s electrical grid” at PRI. “In the past decade or so, China, via its vast network of state-run companies, has brought a development blitz to Laos.”

Politics And Sucheries:

Read “The definitive case for ending the filibuster” at Vox. “Every argument for the filibuster, considered and debunked.”

Read “Judge blocks ‘unlawful’ plan to end Census Monday; Arizona still lags” at Cronkite News.

Read “More than 1K alumni from Amy Coney Barrett's undergrad college sign letter of concern” at The Hill.

Read “We binge-watched 15 hours of Amy Barrett's speeches. Here’s what we learned about her judicial philosophy” at USA Today.

Read “Viral Post Overstates Effect of Trump’s Order on Preexisting Conditions” at Fact Check.

Read “Pence demands plexiglass dividers not be near him at debate” at Raw Story.

Read “Visionary and Pragmatic'—A Black Feminist Guide to Electoral Politics” at Scalawag Magazine.

This Week In Political Corruption:

Read “Texas governor limits election drop boxes to one per county in sprawling state” at CNN.

Read “How John Roberts Quietly Made It Harder to Vote” at Slate. “The Roberts Court has been rewriting the rules of our democracy via the shadow docket.”

Read “In big states, tiny counties, Trump attacking voting rules” at Associated Press. “It’s clearly based on a strategy to disrupt the election as much as possible. You’re seeing a broad-based, generalized strategy to suppress the vote by the Republican Party.” Barry Richard, who represented George W. Bush in the 2000 Florida recount.”

Read “John McAfee, tech mogul and presidential candidate, arrested on suspicion of tax evasion” at Los Angeles Times.

Read “We need to take away children.” Jeff Sessions and top Justice Department officials pushed hard for migrant family separations in 2018, a watchdog found” at New York Times.

Read “Trump Lashes Out at His Cabinet With Calls to Indict Political Rivals” at New York Times. “Most politicians can handle losing a race, but they really don’t want to be embarrassed. When a loss seems inevitable, people who want a future in politics start looking out for their own interests,”

Music-Related News and Such:

Read “The War on Drugs Detail New Live Album” at Spin.

Read “On following the idea” at The Creative Independent. “Musician Phil Elverum on parenting in a pandemic, expressing universal truths through personal details, and finding the beauty in uncertainty.”

Read “Phoebe Bridgers launches her own record label, ‘Saddest Factory’” at Brooklyn Vegan.

Read “Listening Post: Sun Ra Arkestra” at Dusted.

Radiohead’s Kid A turns 20:

  • Read “Kid A Turns 20” at Stereogum.

  • Read “Kid A Reaches Adulthood: Radiohead’s Mesmerizing Fourth Record Turns 20” at Spin.

  • Read "Between the Grooves of Radiohead's 'Kid A'“ at PopMatters.

  • Read “20 Years Ago, Radiohead's 'Kid A' Changed The Way Albums Were Marketed” at Billboard.

Read “Thurston Moore on the Obscure Sonic Youth Songs He Loves the Most” at Vulture.

Read “Sinéad O’Connor Returns With Powerful Cover of Mahalia Jackson’s ‘Trouble of the World’” at Spin.

Read “And The Heat Goes On: Talking Heads' Remain In Light At 40” at Quietus.

Read “The story of grunge in 15 classic albums” at NME. “From Neil Young to Nirvana and their juggernaut anthem 'Smells Like Teen Spirit', along with the post-grunge that followed, the genre has a knotty history.”

Read “Mdou Moctar signs to Matador, shares “Chrismiten” at Brooklyn Vegan.

Read “The (Mostly) True Story of Vanilla Ice, Hip-Hop, and the American Dream” at The Ringer.

Movies/TV/Video Games/Etc.:

Read “Ever Wonder How The Big Bird Costume Worked?”Ever Wonder How The Big Bird Costume Worked?” at The Mind Circle.

Read “Tom DeLonge directing coming of age sci-fi film with “blink-era dick jokes, skateboarding culture, UFOs” at Brooklyn Vegan.

Books/Reading/Authors

Browse “11 Women Horror Writers You Need to Read” at Mental Floss.

Browse “24 Dystopian Books That Will Suck You In And Make You Think” at Buzzfeed.

Read “A Sneak Peek of Margaret Atwood's Poem, Blackberries” at Waterstones.

Design/Artsy Things:

Read “Joy As Resistance” at Vulture. “Artist collective the Wide Awakes takes NYC this weekend. Why we’re marching.”

Food Cultures:

Read “The Court Case That Killed the ‘Ladies Menu’” at Gastro Obscura. “Upscale restaurants once listed prices only for men.”

Read “It's Not Goodbye, But Not Good Either: Ruby Tuesday Declares Bankruptcy” at NPR.

The Weekly Town Crier (10/02/20)

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All the week’s news that’s fit to cry about (10/02/20).





We’ll Miss You:

Read “In Memory of Mac Davis” at American Songwriter.

Religion and Stuff:

Read “Trump Secretly Mocks His Christian Supporters” at The Atlantic. “Former aides say that in private, the president has spoken with cynicism and contempt about believers.” “The president's religious right base doesn't mind that he doesn't share their doctrinal beliefs or even belittles them — they care that he selects conservative justices who protect religious liberty and the unborn and that he fights for them.”

Read “The story behind Amy Coney Barrett’s little-known Catholic group People of Praise” at Washington Post.

Read “The Church Mothers Teach Us to Delight in Scripture” at Christianity Today. “Monica and Macrina didn't just influence Augustine and Gregory of Nyssa. They were biblical interpreters in their own right.”

Read “For Conservative Christian Women, Amy Coney Barrett’s Success Is Personal” at New York Times.

Read “Christian group raises over $500K for Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse” (EDITOR’S NOTE: This should read: “Christian” group raises . . . “

Read “Christians Struggled with Relational Health Prior to the Crisis—So What Has Changed?” at Barna.

Read “What Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination doesn’t mean” at Christian Century. “Don’t bother looking for the political significance of the Supreme Court nominee’s Catholicism. There isn’t any.”

Read “Ravi Zacharias’s Ministry Investigates Claims of Sexual Misconduct at Spas” at Christianity Today. “Three women have come forward with additional allegations against the late Christian apologist.”

Read “Making Your Church Manlier Won’t Make It Bigger” at Christianity Today. “History tells us that denominational growth has nothing to do with sex ratios in the pews.”

Read “Meet the new Justin Bieber: Popstar, husband, holy hugger” at Religion News Service.

Legal/Justice and Social Justice and Race or Gender or Sexism-Related Stuff:

Read “Racism has cost America $16 trillion this century alone” at WSMV Nashville.

Read ‘Indigenous Groups Protest Border Wall Construction At Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument” at KJZZ.

Read “The US government won't detail why TikTok is a security threat” at CNET.

Read “Ballistics don't support AG Cameron's claim Breonna Taylor's boyfriend shot officer” at Louisville Courier-Journal.

  • Read “Officer Charged in Breonna Taylor Case Pleads Not Guilty” at Wall Street Journal.

  • Read “Kentucky attorney general didn't recommend any homicide charges to Breonna Taylor grand jury” at The Hill.

Read “A lot of differences’: Experts address health disparities among Asian American subgroups” at Cronkite News.

Read “California will house transgender inmates by gender identity” at SF Gate.

Read “Federal court orders Texas prison system to provide hand sanitizer for some geriatric inmates during pandemic” at Texas Tribune.

Read “They Have Lost So Much But They Will Not Lose Their Right To Vote.' Advocates Fight To Enfranchise Americans Displaced by Wildfires” at Time.

Read “The 'Dindu' Conspiracy: Donald Trump, America and an Inanimate Object Called Whiteness” at The Root.

Read “This Indian Company Just Introduced a Period Leave Policy” at Global Citizen.

Read “Trump refused to condemn white supremacists. The debate didn't get any better from there” at Mashable. “"Proud Boys, stand back and stand by! But I'll tell you what, somebody's got to do something about antifa and the left." Drumpf went on to say: “This is not a Right Wing Problem," once again denying his own security officials.

  • Read “A Pro-Trump Militant Group Has Recruited Thousands of Police, Soldiers, and Veterans” at The Atlantic. “....The

  • Read “A Pro-Trump Militant Group Has Recruited Thousands of Police, Soldiers, and Veterans” at The Atlantic. “....The leaked database laid everything out. It had been compiled by Rhodes’s deputies as new members signed up at recruiting events or on the Oath Keepers website.... About two-thirds had a background in the military or law enforcement."

  • Read “Right-Wing Domestic Terrorism Is On The Rise. Did The Warning Signs Evade Us?” at WBUR (from 07/2020).

  • Read “Retailers Are Already Pulling 'Stand Back and Stand By' Merch From Online Shelves” at Vice.

Read "H. R. McMaster: ‘Condemning White Supremacists Should Be a Layup’” at The Atlantic.

This Week In Protest-Related News:

Read “US teen charged in Kenosha shootings fights extradition” at Al Jazeera.

Read “How The Protests Upended Portland’s Mayoral Race” at The Intercept.

This Week With The Police:

Read “Breonna Taylor’s death shocked the nation. In Louisville, many Black people are far from surprised” at Los Angeles Times.

  • Read “AG Cameron to release Breonna Taylor grand jury records after juror complains he misled” at Louisville Courier-Journal.

Education and The Learnings // School Re-Openings

Read "Parents Knowingly Sent Kids With Coronavirus to School, Wisconsin Officials Say” at NBC New York. “Never in a million years did we imagine or think to account for parents deliberately sending their sick or symptomatic child to school," one health official said.”

Read “The Federal Government Promised Native American Students Computers and Internet. Many Are Still Waiting” at Pro Publica.

  • Read “The federal government gives Native students an inadequate education” at AZ Central.

Read “60% of Portland State University students face housing, food instability” at Oregon Public Broadcasting.

Your Weekly Coronavirus Roundup:

Read “President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump test positive for Covid-19” at CNN.

Read ‘Pope to UN: Use COVID crisis to come out better, not worse” at 12 News. “Pope Francis said the world has a choice to make as it emerges from the COVID-19 crisis and addresses the grave economic impact it has had on the most vulnerable.”

Read “Over 50 Million People Dually Affected by COVID-19 and Climate Disasters” at Global Citizen.

Read “No Job, Loads of Debt: Covid Upends Middle-Class Family Finances” at Wall Street Journal. “The pandemic is wreaking havoc in loan-laden white-collar workers’ households; ‘I will never claw my way out of this situation’.

Read “Democrats Unveil $2.2 Trillion Pandemic Relief Bill” at Wall Street Journal.

Read “The Coronavirus Mostly Spares Younger Children. Teens Aren’t So Lucky.” at The New York Times.

Read “Titans-Steelers NFL game postponed after positive COVID-19 tests: report” at The Hill.

Read “Trump’s Family Didn’t Wear Masks During Presidential Debate — Except On Social Media” at Huff Post.

Miscellany Cultural Items:

Read “Everybody Vs. the App Store: Why Companies Are Taking Issue With Apple’s Growing Revenue Engine” at Wall Street Journal.

Read “Judge Rules Tucker Carlson Is Not a Credible Source of News” at Slate.

Read “Tracking the Major Wildfires Spreading Across Northern California” at Bloomberg.

Read “Brené Brown, Vulnerability, and The Trump Voter” at Book Riot.

Read “Military Suicides Up As Much As 20% During Coronavirus Era” at Huff Post.

Read “The Legacy of ‘Going Postal’” at Vice. “In the late 80s and early 90s, a spate of shootings by disgruntled postal workers became the primary way most Americans thought of the post office. They also shed light on an agency with a profoundly unhealthy work environment.”

Read “Thousands of Airline Jobs Hang in the Balance as Lawmakers Debate Aid” at Wall Street Journal.

Read “Disney cuts: What is life like after 'magic' job?” at BBC.

Internationalities:

Read “Ai Weiwei: 'Too late' to curb China's global influence” at BBC.

Politics And Sucheries:

Read “Guest Commentary: I served under six presidents — four Republicans, two Democrats — only one has failed to serve U.S. national security interests” at Denver Post.

Read “Why Arizona Is Tilting Blue: ‘The State’s Clearly in Motion’ at New York Times.

Read “57 percent of Americans think next president, Senate should fill Ginsburg vacancy” at The Hill.

Read “Sen. Cory Booker: This president is menacing our democracy” at MSNBC.

Read “Voter registration spiked in days immediately following Ruth Bader Ginsburg death” at The Hill.

Read “Cindy McCain ups support of Joe Biden, joins Democrat’s transition team” at KTAR.

Read “A debate that will live in infamy: That sweaty, red-faced liar is actually our president” at Salon.

This Week In Political Corruption:

Read “Tillis says he has ‘grave concerns’ about voting by mail in NC after board settlement” at News Observer.

Read “The question of how Donald Trump’s Scottish resorts are financed just became even more urgent” at Slate.

Read “IRS: Sorry, but It’s Just Easier and Cheaper to Audit the Poor” at Pro Publica. “Congress asked the IRS to report on why it audits the poor more than the affluent. Its response is that it doesn’t have enough money and people to audit the wealthy properly. So it’s not going to.”

Read “Trump tax records show duplicity. That's devastating for his campaign.” at NBC News.

Read “Detainees at California’s for-profit ICE detention centers will soon be able to sue over abuse, harm” at Los Angeles Times.

Read “Police took 10 guns from Trump associate’s Florida home after wife showed them bruises” at Miami Herald.

Read “DeJoy Says Mail Sorting Machines Were Stripped For Parts And Can't Be Reinstalled” at Yahoo.

  • Read “Postal service ordered to stop cuts, federal judge says” at 12 News.

  • Read “In NC, consequences of Postal Service slowdown extend beyond the mailbox” at WECT.

Read “Foreign Hackers Cripple Texas County’s Email System, Raising Election Security Concerns” at Pro Publica.

Read “Census Cuts All Counting Efforts Short By A Month” at NPR.

Read “Judge orders Georgia officials to provide backup paper poll books ahead of election” at The Hill.

Read “Weissmann: WH didn't fully cooperate with our investigation” at MSNBC. “Andrew Weissmann, former lead prosecutor for Special Counsel Robert Mueller, discusses how Trump manipulated the findings in the Mueller Report and why he says the findings from the NYT report are 'potentially indictable'.”

Read “Secretive group who bankrolled Brett Kavanaugh confirmation is now backing Amy Coney Barrett” at Salon.

Read “Money For Misinformation? Experts Say The First Domestic 'Troll Farms' Are Here” at WBUR.

Read “Trump’s ex-national security adviser says president is ‘aiding and abetting’ Putin” at Politico.

Music-Related News and Such:

Read “The Quiet Return of Fleet Foxes and Sufjan Stevens” at Pitchfork.

  • Read “Sufjan Stevens’s Cry of Despair and Prayer for Redemption” at New York Times.

  • Read “'I have a sense of urgency': Sufjan Stevens wakes from the American dream” at The Guardian.

Read “Stone Roses’ Ian Brown Says COVID Was “Planned,” Releases Anti-Lockdown Song” at Stereogum.

Read “Bonnaroo Shares The Beastie Boys Final Concert” at Jambase.

Read “I Was Bullied for Being Arab. Nine Inch Nails Threw Me a Lifeline.” at New York Times.

Read “It's a bunch of clowns you voted in': Willie Nelson urges fans to 'Vote 'Em Out' in video” at AZ Central.

Movies/TV/Video Games/Etc.:

Read “‘Black Panther’ Mural With Chadwick Boseman Unveiled at Disneyland” at Variety.

  • Read “Sienna Miller says Chadwick Boseman took a pay cut on 21 Bridges so she could make more money” (EDITOR’S NOTE: Now let’s lament a system in which this was necessary in the first place).

Read “Watch Trailer for New Doc on Nickelodeon’s Glory Days, ‘The Orange Years’” at Rolling Stone.

Design/Artsy Things:

Read “Studio Ghibli Puts Online 400 Images from Eight Classic Films, and Lets You Download Them for Free” at Open Culture.

Food Cultures:

Read “Why Are So Dang Many Potato Chip Brands From Pennsylvania?” at Gastro Obscura.

Read “Ireland’s Supreme Court rules Subway sandwiches have too much sugar to meet legal definition of bread” at Market Watch.

Misc. Oddities:

Read “The Rise and Fall of North Carolina’s National Hollerin’ Contest” at Atlas Obscura.

Local:

Read “Pedestrians in Arizona are more likely to be hit and killed than nearly any other state. Why?” at AZ Central.

The Weekly Town Crier (09/25/20)

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All the week’s news that’s fit to cry about (09/25/20).

We’ll Miss You:

Read “Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dead at 87” at CNN.

Read “Robert Graetz, minister who helped organize Montgomery Bus Boycott, dies at 92” at Montgomery Advertiser.

Read “Juliette Gréco, French chanteuse, dies at 93” at Boing Boing.

Religion and Stuff:

Read “Prominent Southern Baptists are dropping ‘Southern’ name amid racial unrest” at Washington Post.

Read “Liberal congregations more politically active than conservative ones” at Religion News Service. “new study of 1,262 congregations across the United States shows it is liberal congregations, and particularly Black churches, that have become substantially more engaged in political activity compared to their conservative counterparts.”

Read “Critiquing the Church’s Beliefs about Sex and Gender (Aimee Byrd)” at Hebraic Thought.

Read “Pope Francis will take his Message on Climate Change to the UN General Assembly” at Open PR.

Read “Political Divides, Conspiracy Theories and Divergent News Sources Heading Into 2020 Election” at Journalism. “43% of Republicans identify fraud as a major problem with voting by mail versus 11% of Democrats. 41% of Republicans who have heard about QAnon say it's a good thing for the country, per new Pew poll.”

  • Read “Who is behind QAnon? The Reply All podcast investigates” at Boing Boing.

Read “ICE apprehension on church grounds violated federal policy, say faith leaders” at Religion News Service.

Read “Cult leader who claims to be reincarnation of Jesus arrested in Russia” at The Guardian. “Former traffic officer Sergei Torop, AKA Vissarion, arrested in special operation in Siberia.”

Read “The Black Church Is Atlanta’s Original Community Organizer” at Christianity Today.

Read “U.S. bishops urge immediate halt to federal executions” at American Magazine.

Read “AG Barr To Receive “Catholic” Award Hours After Authorizing Execution” at Catholic Mobilizing Newtork.

Read “‘That’s No Accident’: Robert Henderson Credits His Prayer for Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Death” at Right Wing Watch.

Read “People who are highly spiritual tend to be more civic-minded” at Religion News Service.

Read “Pandemic Denial Sows Division and Endangers Others” at Christianity Today.

Read “Prominent evangelical church is the first to sue D.C. over covid-19 worship limits” at Washington Post. “The complaint filed by the 850-member Capitol Hill Baptist Church is the first legal challenge by a religious organization to the capital’s coronavirus restrictions. There have been two others in the region — one in Virginia and one in Maryland — since quarantine measures began, and final decisions are pending in both.”

Read “The Market Made Me Do It: The Scandal of the Evangelical College” at Mere Orthodoxy.

Read “How a Sean Feucht worship service convinced me I am no longer an evangelical” at Religion News Service. “I can no longer call myself an evangelical, because what defines a white evangelical in the United States has become a longing for an authoritarian state where Christianity is prioritized and privileged.”

Legal/Justice and Social Justice and Race or Gender or Sexism-Related Stuff:

Read “NBC News contributor Hugh Hewitt: “The lockdown ... is other than slavery the most numerous imposition on people's individual liberty” at Media Matters.

Read “McConnell Warns D.C. and Puerto Rico Statehood Part of Democrats' 'Radical' Agenda” at Newsweek.

Read “White Supremacists Are a Threat to Elections, Says the DHS” at The Nation. According to this report, right wing extremists have been encouraging followers to intentionally spread covid in minority neighborhoods and at political rallies.

Read “Nike jerseys commemorating four years since Kaepernick took a knee sold out in under a minute” at The Hill.

Read “What Is Critical Race Theory and Why Is Trump Afraid of It?” at The Nation. “His attacks are an attempt to reach those who repudiate the symbols and premises of white supremacy but worry that anti-racist advocacy can go “too far.”

Read “Whiteness as Property” at Harvard Law Review (originally from 1993).

Read “Satchuel Cole, leader in the fight for racial equality in Indianapolis, lied about own race” at Indy Star.

Read “Female graduates earn less than their male counterparts just one year after university - here's why” at The Telegraph.

Read “A racial slur remains in hundreds of place names throughout North America” at Public Radio International. “Clashes throughout North America about the racial slur "squaw" is starting to lead to place name changes.”

Read “The Top Contender for RBG’s Seat Has a Fundamentally Cruel Vision of the Law” at Slate. “Here’s what we can expect if Trump fills the late justice’s seat.”

Read ‘A Neighborhood’s Race Affects Home Values More Now Than in 1980” at Bloomberg.

Read “He fought wildfires while imprisoned. California reported him to Ice for deportation” at The Guardian. “Kao Saelee worked as an incarcerated firefighter in California. But when his release date came, the state partnered with ICE and transferred him to detention. He now faces deportation to Laos, a country his family fled when he was two years old.”

Read “Wells Fargo CEO ruffles feathers with comments about diverse talent” at Reuters. "[T]he unfortunate reality is that there is a very limited pool of black talent to recruit from." - Wells Fargo CEO Charles Scharf.

Read “Fight to protect Joshua trees faces stiff local opposition in California” at The Guardian.

Read “GOP will ask Supreme Court to limit mail voting in Pennsylvania in first post-RBG test” at The Hill.

Read “Almost half of NFL fans have changed their mind about Colin Kaepernick” at The Hill.

Read “Program to house homeless people in hotels is ending after falling short of goal” at Los Angeles Times.

Read “In North Carolina, Black Voters’ Mail-In Ballots Much More Likely to Be Rejected Than Those From Any Other Race” at Pro Publica.

Read “Biracial Couple Gets Lower House Appraisal With Black Family Member Present” at WBUR.

Read “The Secret History Of The Word 'Cracker' at NPR. “A 1783 pejorative - "crackers" specifies people who descended from convicts that were transported from Great Britain to Virginia at different times, and inherit so much profligacy from their ancestors, that they are ostracized.”

Read “Until Black Women Are Free, None of Us Will Be Free” at New Yorker.

Read “The Truth About ‘The Truth About’ Memes” at New York Times.

Read “Extremists Pose a Violent Threat, FBI and DHS Officials Say” at Wall Street Journal. “Christopher Wray, Ken Cuccinelli warned a Senate committee of white supremacists, anarchists and militia-style groups.”

This Week In Protest-Related News:

Read “Portland protests resume, demonstrators remain resolute in push for racial justice” at Oregon Public Media.

Read “DOJ Designates New York City as an “Anarchist Jurisdiction” at NBC New York.

  • Read “Trump's DOJ Threatens To Strip Funds From NYC And Other "Anarchist Cities," Prompting Cheers From NYPD Unions” at Gothamist.

Read “Tohono O'odham protest at border wall site ends in standoff, scuffle” at AZ Central.

Read “Luxury cars, MAGA flags and Facebook invites: How an unknown Idaho family organized the Portland rally that turned deadly’ at Washington Post.

Read “Video refutes trooper who denied unmasking protester” at Associated Press.

Read “The Problem With Militias and the Constitution” at U.S. News and World Report. “The presence of illegal militia groups at recent racial justice protests increases the chance of violence and has already proved deadly.”

  • Read “pro-Trump activists plotted violence ahead of Portland rallies” at The Guardian. “Patriots Coalition members suggested political assassinations and said ‘laws will be broken, people will get hurt’, leaked chats show.”

Read “Jailed Denver anti-racist leaders subjected to dangerous and degrading conditions in custody” at Liberation News.

Read “A fake protest led to armed resistance in Prescott” at AZ Central. “Posts spread on social media in the Prescott area, claiming buses of protesters were coming on Sept. 11. They claimed local police needed help. There was no protest planned, and the police didn't request help, but armed counterprotesters still turned out.”

Read “Suspect charged in connection to shooting of 2 Louisville officers” at 12 News.

This Week With The Police:

Read “Salt Lake City police officer charged after body cam video shows K9 ordered to bite suspect” at NBC News.

Read “Man in MCSO custody dies after being found unresponsive in Cave Creek substation” at AZ Central.

Read “Trooper who shot Dion Johnson will not face criminal charges, county attorney says” at AZ Central.

Read “NYPD Officer Spied on Tibetan New Yorkers for Chinese Government: Feds” at Daily Beast.

Read “Bodycam shows Salt Lake City police shooting 13-year-old boy with autism” at Salt Lake Tribune.

Read “Six Louisville cops under internal investigation for roles in fatal Breonna Taylor search” at Louisville Courier-Journal.

  • Read “Kentucky Grand Jury Indicts 1 Of 3 Officers Over Breonna Taylor Killing” at NPR.

  • Read “Q&A: Why was no one charged in Breonna Taylor's shooting?” at Los Angeles Times.

Read “Is Black Lives Matter Causing a Police Shortage?” at Slate. “Probably not.”

Read “Maricopa County Attorney Calls For Body Cameras For All Arizona Officers” at KJZZ.

Education and The Learnings // School Re-Openings

Read ‘This company says it's 'not a school' and has no teachers. But it gets millions meant for charter, private schools” at AZ Central.

Read "New Zealand Schools Have Been Advised to Use Students’ Preferred Names, Genders, and Pronouns” at Global Citizen.

Read “Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow and family hope 'Bald Beagle' will teach kids 'God and country' American history” at Religion News Service. “President Donald Trump believes American history is under attack. His lawyer — and his lawyer’s kids — want to do something about it. Enter Bald Beagle.”

Read “Telling the Truth About Slavery Is Not ‘Indoctrination’” at The Atlantic. “Our country is made better, not worse, by young people reckoning with the full legacy of the institution.”

Read “University of California wrongly admitted well-connected students, state auditor finds” at ABC 7.

Read “'Where Are the Kids?' School Is Back in Session, but Many Kindergarteners Are Missing” at Time.

Read “Jeff Bezos Announces The First Bezos Academy, A Free Preschool For Students From Low-Income Families” at Forbes.

Your Weekly Coronavirus Roundup:

Read “Fresh curbs in Europe as global coronavirus cases top 30m” at Al Jazeera.

Read “Police Haul Man Out of Library for Not Wearing Mask During Meeting About Wearing Masks” at Herman Cain’s website, saying: “It's time for the obsessive mask-wearing to wear off.” . (EDITOR’S NOTE: Herman Cain died of Coronavirus).

Read “Boris Johnson warns second coronavirus wave has arrived in the UK” at Daily Record.

Read “2-month-old dies from COVID-19 in Michigan: 'Children are not spared' at The Hill.

Read “Anti-maskers in Indonesia are being forced to dig graves for COVID-19 victims” at KXAN.

Read “Boris Johnson says self isolate or face £10,000 fine as tough new virus law imposed” at Daily Record.

Read “CNN's medical expert says 'source' told him '80-90%' of COVID deaths could have been saved by scrapped WH mask plan” at Fox News.

Read “Top US health official says coronavirus vaccine not likely until mid-2021: 'That's just a fact'“ at The Hill.

Read “Scotland Restricts People From Visiting Other People’s Homes” at Bloomberg.

Read “Jorma Kaukonen Honored By The State of New Jersey for Providing “Respite and Entertainment” Through COVID-19 Pandemic” at Jambands.

Read “Officiant At Superspreader Maine Wedding Is An Anti-Mask Evangelical” at Huff Post.

Read “Dr. William Schaffner: CDC's removal of virus transmission guidance 'very distressing'“ at MSNBC.

Read “Despite early, strict quarantine measures, Peru has worst COVID-19 death rate in the world” at Miami Herald.

Read “The media needs to do more to show real Americans' pain during the pandemic” at CNN. “29 million Americans are on unemployment aid, 5% of renters (8 million people) are behind on rent, and 1 in 10 families with kids didn't have enough to eat in August.”

Read “Why SF has the lowest COVID-19 death rate of any other major city” at SF Gate.

Read “Fauci testifies on coronavirus response” at CNN. “You’ve misconstrued that, senator, and you’ve done that repeatedly in the past.” Dr. Fauci pushes back against Sen. Rand Paul’s claims on the coronavirus.

Miscellany Cultural Items:

Read “Trump Administration to Ban TikTok App Downloads Starting Sunday” at Pitchfork.

Read “I Have Blood on My Hands”: A Whistleblower Says Facebook Ignored Global Political Manipulation” at Buzzfeed News. “I’ve found multiple blatant attempts by foreign national governments to abuse our platform on vast scales to mislead their own citizenry, and caused international news on multiple occasions. I have personally made decisions that affected national presidents without oversight, and taken action to enforce against so many prominent politicians globally that I’ve lost count.”

Read “Kanye West Calls Puma ‘Trash’ and Says He Is the ‘Head of Adidas’ on Twitter” at Footwear News.

Read “The West’s Wildfires Collide With its Housing” at Bloomberg. “Oregon was already short 155,000 homes before fires destroyed thousands more, including a huge share of one county’s most affordable options. Where do people go now?”

Read ‘Wired Magazine: Amazon Takes Down Controversial Job Postings” at KJZZ. “Amazon recently removed job postings for Phoenix that went viral with descriptions that included "collecting information about labor organizing threats against the company."

Read “Facebook says it may quit Europe over ban on sharing data with US” at The Guardian.

Read “California to Ban Sales of New Gas-Powered Cars Starting in 2035” at at Wall Street Journal.

Read “Nikola founder Trevor Milton forfeits $166 million in stock he would have lost anyway and gets to keep $3.1 billion under separation deal” at CNBC. “Electric truck company Nikola is under investigation by the Justice Dept and SEC for fraud. Two-thirds of its value was wiped out in the scandal. The company has sold 0 trucks. The founder just resigned with $3.1 billion exit package.”

Read “If You Live in Illinois, Facebook Probably Owes You $400” at Vice.

Read “Harley-Davidson to exit world's biggest bike market” at BBC.

Internationalities:

Read “Erdogan willing to meet Greek PM over east Med tensions” at Al Jazeera.

Politics And Sucheries:

Read “He arrived in NC with big donations, but the money traces to a business with QAnon link” at News Observer. “Four voter support groups suspect someone tried to infiltrate their operations as part of an undercover campaign to discredit them.”

Read “Democratic senator calls for eliminating filibuster, expanding Supreme Court if GOP fills vacancy” at The Hill.

Read Court-packing, Democrats’ nuclear option for the Supreme Court, explained” at Vox.

Read “51 percent of voters want to abolish the electoral college” at The Hill.

Read “Arnold Schwarzenegger Offers Grants to Reopen Polling Places” at Variety.

Read “What The SCOTUS Vacancy Means for Abortion — And The 2020 Election” at NPR.

Read “Democrats Prepare New Coronavirus Aid Proposal” at Wall Street Journal.

Read “Mary Trump sues President Trump, family members over fraud allegations” at The Hill.

Read “Democrats prepare bill limiting U.S. Supreme Court justice terms to 18 years” at Reuters.

This Week In Political Corruption:

Read “U.S. Admits That Congressman Offered Pardon to Assange If He Covered Up Russia Links” at Daily Beast. “Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher offered Assange the deal in 2017, a year after the emails that damaged Hillary Clinton had been published.”

Read “Federal Prosecutors Have Steve Bannon’s Murky Nonprofit in Their Sights” at Pro Publica. “Tucked at the bottom of the long indictment against Bannon, prosecutors say they want to seize the assets of his nonprofit Citizens of the American Republic, shedding more light on the secretive political group’s finances.”

Watch: “The Daily Show Hilariously Cut Together Clips of Trump Doing Exactly the Things He Accuses Biden of Doing” at Second Nexus.

Read “Virginians wait up to four hours to cast early voting ballots” at The Hill.

Read “What GOP Leaders Said About Merrick Garland Back In 2016” at Huff Post.

  • Read “Lindsey Graham, Chuck Grassley, and Susan Collins Have Said They Won’t Vote For SCOTUS Nominee During An Election” at Politics USA.

  • Read “Lindsey Graham Goes Back on His Word, Vows to Vote for Ginsburg Replacement Before Election” at Slate.

  • Read “Sen. Lisa Murkowski Reiterates Opposition To Confirmation Vote Before The Election” at NPR.

  • Read “Democrats say 2016 should be the standard for high court nominees in election year” at NBC News. ““They made a new precedent," Hillary Clinton said Sunday about Senate Republicans, "and that new precedent, which they all defended incredibly passionately, is to wait for the next president.”

  • Read “Most Americans think winner of election should pick next Supreme Court justice” at The Hill.

  • Read “McConnell locks down key GOP votes in Supreme Court fight” (EDITOR’S NOTE: Why is this a “fight” if we’re all just trying to do the right thing?).

Read “DeJoy Didn't Bother to Check Whether His Policies Would Kneecap the USPS” at Vice. “USPS collected the data they needed to know running trucks on time would destroy service, but they didn't look at it.”

Read “ICE Hysterectomy Doctor Wasn’t Even a Board-Certified OB-GYN” at Daily Beast.

Read “Trump, Orbán, and Putin Are Forming an Authoritarian Alliance” at The Intelligencer.

Read ‘The Pentagon funneled nearly $1,000,000,000 of taxpayer money meant for masks and medical equipment to defense contractors building jet engines and body armor” at Washington Post.

Read “DHS awarded $6 million in contracts to firm where Acting Secretary Wolf's wife is executive” at NBC News.

Read “Texas Republicans sue to stop Gov. Greg Abbott's extension of early voting period during the pandemic” at Texas Tribune.

Read “Trump's threat: 'Get rid of the ballots' — 'there won't be a transfer, frankly, there will be a continuation'“ at Boing Boing.

Read “Judge orders Eric Trump to sit for NY Attorney General deposition before the election” at NBC News. “Eric Trump had tried to delay answering questions in the A.G.'s Trump Organization investigation.”

Read “Mary Trump: Take It Seriously That Trump May Not Hand Over Power” at Huff Post. “How far is he willing to go to remain in office if he loses? “Farther than you can possibly imagine,” warned the president’s niece.”

Music-Related News and Such:

Read “How South Africa’s Blue Notes Helped Invent European Free Jazz” at Bandcamp.

Read “Three Years After Tom Petty’s Death, His Dream Project Finally Emerges” at Rolling Stone.

Browse “A Beginner’s Guide To The Interstellar Music of Sun Ra” at Treble.

Read “Final Recordings of the Tragically Hip’s Gord Downie Set for New Album” at Pitchfork. “Listen to a pair of songs from Away Is Mine, a double album featuring tracks recorded months before he died.”

Browse (if you must) Rolling Stone’s picks for “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.”

Read “Sun Ra: ‘I’m Everything and Nothing’” at New York Review of Books.

Read “Punks Unite in Trailer for Rock Against Racism Doc ‘White Riot’” at Rolling Stone. “British punks unite in the trailer for Rock Against Racism documentary 'White Riot,' a new film chronicling the movement against racist rhetoric in the U.K. in the late Seventies.”

Read “Channeling alienation into a cosmic passion project” at Xtra. “John Shepherd dreamed of contacting aliens through music he beamed into space.”

Read “We’ve Got A File On You: Thurston Moore” at Stereogum. “The Sonic Youth legend on Bernie Sanders, black metal, Steve Albini, 'Gilmore Girls,' & more.”

Read “Michael Kiwanuka Wins Hyundai Mercury Prize 2020” at Clash.

Read “‘Wonderwall’ at 25: How Oasis’ Unlikely Ballad Became One of the Last Rock Standards” at Rolling Stone. “A quarter-century ago, the British band broke into America with an uncharacteristically sensitive hit. The song remains shockingly popular — even if the guy who wrote it isn’t really a fan.”

Watch “From The Edge of America :: Lonnie Holley and Richard Swift” at Aquarium Drunkard.

Read “Terms Of Service” at NCart. “Cory Rayborn had an unlikely bonus task to complete in the midst of his law school orientation, in the summer of 2000: package and ship the debut release from his fledgling record label, Three Lobed.”

Watch “Kraftwerk’s “The Robots” Performed by German First Graders in Adorable Cardboard Robot Outfits” at Open Culture.

Movies/TV/Video Games/Etc.:

Read “See All the Winners of the 2020 Emmys” at Time.

Read “Microsoft buys Bethesda, publisher of Skyrim, Doom, and Fallout, for $7.5 billion” at AV Club.

Read “‘Family Guy,’ ‘Bob’s Burgers’ Score Two-Season Renewals at Fox” at Variety.

Read “Some monster is tweeting out the entire Shrek 2 script, one line at a time” at AV Club.

Read “Dan Levy On Schitt’s Creek’s Fulsome, Splendrous Emmys Night” at Vulture.

Books/Reading/Authors

Read “We're Booked: Join NPR At This Year's Virtual National Book Festival” at NPR.

Design/Artsy Things:

See “Type lovers, over 30,000 old cigarette boxes.”

Science/Animals/Technology/Environment/Etc.:

Read “Scientists Race Against Time To Save Coral Off Florida Keys” at WBUR.

Read “The Internet Archive Will Digitize & Preserve Millions of Academic Articles with Its New Database, "Internet Archive Scholar" at Open Culture.

Food Cultures:

Read “Minnesota’s ‘Root Beer Lady’ Lived Alone in a Million-Acre Wilderness” at Gastro Obscura. “The “loneliest woman in America” brewed root beer for thousands of visitors.”

Local:

Read “Ducey signs law adding 2 justices to Arizona Supreme Court” at Tucson.com.

Read “Everything you need to know before voting on Proposition 207 in Arizona” at 12 News.

Read “Live events workers marched with empty road cases to a rally in Tempe to save jobs” at AZ Central.

The Weekly Town Crier (09/18/20)

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All the week’s news that’s fit to cry about (09/18/20).


We’ll Miss You:

Read “Diana Rigg, star of 'Game of Thrones' and 'The Avengers,' dies at 82” at NBC.

Read “Hal Singer, Saxophonist and Tulsa Massacre Survivor, Dies at 100” at New York Times.

Read “R.I.P. Toots Hibbert, Reggae Pioneer and Frontman of Toots & The Maytals Dies at 77” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “Original Bad Brains singer Sid McCray, RIP” at Brooklyn Vegan.


Religion and Stuff:

Read “No Pearl-Clutching Allowed” by Diana Butler Bass.

Read “Former Avalon Singer Michael Passons Says He Was Kicked Out of Christian Band for Being Gay” at People.

Read “It’s Out Of Control’: How QAnon Undermines Legitimate Anti-Trafficking Efforts” at Huff Post. “The child sex trade is a global crisis. Far-right conspiracy theorists are harassing, distracting and intimidating the organizations fighting to end it.”

Read “Black Lives Matter co-founder denounces Pat Robertson for saying the movement is 'anti-God' at Religion News Service.

Read “'God Has a Mission for Me': Roger Stone Tells CBN News He's Not Out for Revenge but on a New Path” at CBN News.

Read “On the Use and Abuse of Critical Race Theory in American Christianity” at The Dispatch.

Read “Christian Apologist Ravi Zacharias A Serial Liar And Molester? Brothers In Faith Blame “Demonic” Hindu Yoga In His Spa” at Swarajya Mag.

  • Read “Betrayed Trust, Part One: New Testimony, Emails & Other Documents Portray Ravi Zacharias as Predator in Sexting Scandal” at Roys Report.

  • Read “Betrayed Trust, Part Two: Woman Accused in Sexting Scandal Claims Ravi Zacharias Groomed & Exploited Her” at Roys Report.

  • Read “Betrayed Trust, Part Three: Ravi Zacharias Claimed Accusers in Sexting Scandal Were Extortionists, But Evidence Indicates Otherwise” at Roys Report.

Read “How Did Martin Luther Become So Popular?” at Sojourners.

Read “Former Christianity Today Editor Mark Galli to be Confirmed a Catholic” at Roys Report.

Read “Baptist Calvinists defend slavery of Southern Seminary founders” at Baptist News.

Read “Catholic group launches $9.7M campaign against Biden targeting swing-state voters” at The Hill.

Read “White Christians Have Become Even Less Motivated to Address Racial Injustice” at Barna.

  • Read “No race problem here: Despite summer of protests, many practicing Christians remain ambivalent” at Religion News Service.

Read “Evangelical Pastor Urges Christians to 'Mobilize' to Fight Civil War Against Left-Wing Activists” at Newsweek.

Read “An evangelical activist could draw big crowds to Milwaukee, Madison and Kenosha as Wisconsin reaches record COVID-19 cases” at Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Read “The Complicated Importance Of Abortion To Trump Voters” at NPR (EDITOR’S NOTE: Abortion would not be legal nor exist as it currently does without Republican support).

Legal/Justice/Human Rights and Social Justice and Race or Gender or Sexism-Related Stuff:

Read “Conor McGregor arrested for alleged attempted sexual assault in Corsica” at Mirror.

Read “Former Judge Gleeson's response to Justice Department efforts to drop Michael Flynn's prosecution” at CNN.

Read “The IRS offers a $625,000 bounty to anyone who can break Monero and Lightning” at Coin Telegraph.

Read “Naomi Osaka Says She Wore 7 Masks About Black Lives During This Year's U.S. Open to 'Make People Start Talking' at Time.

Read “A Coded Word From the Far Right Roils France’s Political Mainstream” at New York Times.

Read “Young US Latinos are at the forefront of a climate revolution” at PRI.

Read “19 families buy nearly 97 acres of land in Georgia to create a city safe for Black people” at CNN.

Read “Judges halt plan to exclude unauthorized immigrants from count used to award seats in Congress” at CBS News.

Read “Oregon prisoners report ‘inhumane’ conditions following fire evacuations, transfers” at Oregonian Live.

Read “How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled” at NPR.

Read “California Woman Goes Off On Racist Rant At Man During Dispute About His Kids’ Sidewalk Art” at Percolately.

Read “‘Like an Experimental Concentration Camp’: Whistleblower Complaint Alleges Mass Hysterectomies at ICE Detention Center” at Law and Crime.

  • Read “Whistleblower Alleges 'Medical Neglect,' Questionable Hysterectomies Of ICE Detainees” at KCRW.

Read “A Civil War Political Movement Reawakens — Complete With Capes” at New York Times.

Read “The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90%—And That's Made the U.S. Less Secure” at Time.

Read “ICE deported a key witness in investigation of sexual assault and harassment at El Paso detention center” at Texas Tribune.

Read “Donald Trump accused of sexual assault by former model Amy Dorris” at The Guardian.

This Week In Protest-Related News:

Read “George Floyd family attorney slams defense claim he died from drug overdose” at NBC News.

Read “City of Louisville agrees to 'substantial' settlement in Breonna Taylor shooting” at Louisville Courier-Journal.

Read “Portland slaps new $20K daily fine on fed courthouse fence” at Pamplin Media.

Read “Portland Protesters Say Their Lives Were Upended by the Posting of Their Mug Shots on a Conservative Twitter Account” at Willamette Weekly. “What Andy Ngo is doing is legal. The mug shots are public records. And Ngo told WW that it is his “duty” to report on protesters who have been arrested.”

Read ‘KPCC Journalist Tackled, Arrested While Trying To Cover L.A. Protest” at NPR.

Read “Violent protests erupt in Colombia after the death of a man repeatedly tasered by police” at CBS News.

Read “Massive Protests Continue In Belarus As Demonstrators Demand Lukashenko Resign” at NPR.

Read “Attacks on journalists during protests risen sharply: UNESCO” at Al Jazeera. “Journalists attacked, arrested or killed in 21 protests between January and June of this year, UNESCO said.”

Read “Whistleblower says officials considered using "heat ray" on D.C. protester” at Axios. “Federal officials stockpiled ammunition at the D.C Armory and sought crowd control devices before law enforcement forcibly cleared protesters from Lafayette Square in June, a whistleblower said in written submissions to Congress.”

This Week With The Police:

Read “4 Texas police officers fired after fatally shooting man 'having a mental breakdown' in April” at USA Today.

Read “NLVPD officer accused of kneeing handcuffed suspect, asking others to turn off bodycams” at Las Vegas 3.

Read “Salt Lake police chief, former chief address shooting of teen with autism” at KSL.

Read “Flagstaff police officer dead after reportedly taking his own life” at 12 News.

Read “2 L.A. deputies shot in ‘ambush’ attack recovering after surgery” at Los Angeles Times.

  • Read “Shooting of L.A. deputies new flashpoint in a 'tinderbox moment'" at Yahoo.

Read “Policing in Arizona is at a crossroads as long-simmering issues involving race and use-of-force come to a head” at KJZZ.

Read ‘Roderick Walker: Georgia Police Tackle & Pin Cab Rider in Viral Video” at Heavy.

Read ‘Maryland Police Officer Indicted After Man Left Partially Paralyzed” at NBC Washington.

Read “Officer-involved shooting leaves one person injured in North City” at KMOV.

Read “Openly-Gay Congressional Candidate Hits Back After Police Union Calls Him A 'First Class Wh*re'“ at Comic Sands.

Read “A Newark Officer Was Filmed Punching Someone. Jelani Cobb Asked a Police Union Head If It Was Justified” at PBS’ Frontline.

Read “8 Times Cops Let People Go as Personal Favors (And One When They Didn’t)” at Vice.

Read “Documents Reveal How the Police Kept Daniel Prude’s Death Quiet” at New York Times.

Education and The Learnings // School Re-Openings

Read “Nearly two-thirds of US young adults unaware 6m Jews killed in the Holocaust” at The Guardian.

Read “Trump announces commission to further 'patriotic education' at The Hill.

Your Weekly Coronavirus Roundup:

Read “Canada reports zero COVID-19 deaths for first time since March” at Reuters.

Read “U.S. closes in on grim pandemic milestone: the 200,000th COVID-19 death” at NBC News.

  • Read Trump told Bob Woodward he knew in February that COVID-19 was 'deadly stuff' but wanted to 'play it down' at NBC News.

  • See “32 times Trump said the coronavirus would go away” at Washington Post.

  • Read “RNC chairwoman says history will vindicate Trump's coronavirus handling” at NBC News.

  • Read “Joy Reid on Trump downplaying coronavirus dangers: Your President lied to you” at MSNBC.

  • Read “Trump’s coronavirus death toll estimate exposes his failure” at Vox. “Trump had a chance to avert the unfolding coronavirus disaster. He blew it.”

  • Read “Trump’s COVID-19 Culpability” at Niskassen Center.

Read “CDC Director Says COVID-19 Vaccine Likely Won't Be Widely Available Until Next Year” at NPR.

  • Read “Trump says CDC director "made a mistake" when he said vaccine won't be widely available until at least summer 2021” at CBS News.

Read “Political Appointees Meddled in C.D.C.’s ‘Holiest of the Holy’ Health Reports” at New York Times. “Trump loyalists at the Health and Human Services Department have been exerting influence on the Centers for Disease Control’s weekly reports on all disease outbreaks, the coronavirus and beyond.”

Read “Trump Pressed for Plasma Therapy. Officials Worry, Is an Unvetted Vaccine Next?” at New York Times.

Read “Adults with Covid-19 about 'twice as likely' to say they have dined at a restaurant, CDC study suggests” at CNN.

Read “COVID creeps into a sprawling Syrian refugee camp in Jordan” at CBS News.

Read “Bullfighting has reached a crisis point in Spain” at PRI. “Spain has just become the first country in Europe to register half a million coronavirus cases, leaving bullrings empty and bullfighters out of work.”

Read “Florida bars to reopen even as state battles coronavirus” at CBS News.

Read “Coronavirus pandemic taking much bigger mental health toll on young adults compared to older adults, survey finds” at CBS News.

Read “Tom Hanks' Blood Will be Used To Develop COVID-19 Vaccine” at Today.

Read “A top disease expert is warning of 'another 12 to 14 months of a really hard road ahead of us,' and says the US has no national plan to stop it” at Yahoo.

Read “Israel to Enter Second Virus Lockdown After Bungled Reopen” at Bloomberg.

Read “Utah County behind ‘clear’ spike in coronavirus cases, state health officials say” at Salt Lake Tribune.

Read “UArizona recommending 14-day shelter-in-place for students to curb spread of COVID-19” at KGUN9.

Read “Coronavirus cases are growing in 11 U.S. states as Fauci warns of 'disturbing' data” at CNBC.

Read “The Sturgis Biker Rally Did Not Cause 266,796 Cases of COVID-19” at Slate.

Read “Bill Gates: CDC being 'written out of the picture' on coronavirus” at The Hill. “The CDC is largely being written out of the picture because you have people at the White house who aren’t epidemiologists, saying what a great job they’ve done, and so it’s no longer a set of experts.”

Read “Coronavirus: Ukraine accuses Belarus over stranded Jewish pilgrims” at BBC.

Read “Hungary Tightens Rules With Virus Wave Expected to Last Months” at Bloomberg.

Read “Iran’s Daily Coronavirus Cases Surge to Three-Month High” at Bloomberg.

Read “West Coast Fires Are Raising Covid-19 Risks” at Wall Street Journal.


Miscellany Cultural Items:

Read “In Oregon, a New Climate Menace: Fires Raging Where They Don’t Usually Burn” at New York Times.

  • Read “As the West Coast Burns, Communities Unravel With Each Death” at New York Times.

  • Read “West Coast Fires: Climate, Forest Management, Lax Rules, Plenty Of Blame To Go Around” at NPR.

  • Read “Trump Bucks Climate Science in Wildfire Briefing” Fact Check.

Read “Former Daily Caller Editor Reveals He Was Forced To Publish Oleg Deripaska” at Empty Wheel.

Read “Alicia Keys interview: ‘I despise the word celebrity – it’s such an empty word’” at The Telegraph.

Read “‘World’s Loneliest Elephant’ Is Finally Free After 35 Years in Confinement” at Global Citizen.

Read “Bush’s Empty Words on Post-9/11 Tolerance Were Good, Actually” at Slate.

Read “In Oregon, a Year of Political Tumult Extends to Devastating Wildfires” at New York Times.

Read “13-year-old dies from brain-eating amoeba after vacation in Florida, family says” at CBS.

Read “Facebook deleting posts linking activist groups to Oregon fires” at CNet.

Read “Oracle Picked as Winning Bid for TikTok U.S. Over Microsoft” at Bloomberg.

Read “What I Learned From Writing Letters To Strangers Across America” at NPR.

Read “David Lynch Tries to Make a List of the Good Things Happening in the World … and Comes Up Blank” at Open Culture.

Read “Bill Gates: “Our values do change what gets funded in this economy” at MarketPlace.

Internationalities:

Read “Liberia declares rape a national emergency after spike in cases” at Al Jazeera.

Read “Iran: Secret execution of wrestler Navid Afkari a ‘travesty of justice’” at Amnesty International.

Read “India-China dispute: China returns five missing Indian nationals” at BBC.

Read “Afghan-Taliban talks: Government calls for ceasefire” at BBC.

Read “Officials: Iran weighs plot to kill U.S. ambassador to South Africa” at Politico.

Read “Sweden and France Confirm Aleksei Navalny Was Poisoned With Novichok, Germany Says” at Vice.

Read “Yemen: Aid Obstruction Puts Millions at Risk” at Human Rights Watch.

Read “US ambassador to China stepping down” at The Hill.

Read “Trump says he wanted to kill Assad, but Mattis opposed” at France 24.

Politics And Sucheries:

Read “The Trump campaign played a song about rich kids dodging the Vietnam War draft — which the president did 5 times — at a Michigan rally” at Business Insider.

Read “Ohio high court says no to Kanye West’s ballot request” at Fox 8.

Read “Trump Campaign Staffer Slammed After He Tried Mocking Joe Biden as He Visited His Son's Grave” at Second Nexus.

Read “Top Aide in Review of Russia Inquiry Resigns From Justice Dept.” at New York Times.

Read “A major American city may soon allow 16-year-olds to vote — and others could follow suit” at NBC News.

Read “Years after 9/11, the political use of fear continues on” at Chicago Tribune.

Read “Republicans Are Knocking On Doors. Democrats Aren't. Biden's Campaign Says That's OK” at NPR.

Read “Mary Trump says reporters 'continue to pull these punches' at CNN.

Read “NRA's political influence dwindling ahead of the election” at Axios. “The National Rifle Association has spent $9.2 million on political expenditures this cycle, about one-sixth of the $54.4 million reported in 2016, according to Federal Election Commission data tracked by Open Secrets.”

Read “Biden Creates Legal War Room, Preparing for a Big Fight Over Voting” at Yahoo.

Read “Scientific American Endorses Joe Biden” at Scientific American. “We’ve never backed a presidential candidate in our 175-year history—until now.”

Read “400,000 people have registered to vote through Snapchat” at The Verge.

Read “At Least Someone's Trying to Pass a Stimulus Package” at Vice. “The House Problem Solvers Caucus — a bipartisan group of 50 lawmakers — is trying to broker a compromise between Democrats and Republicans before benefits completely run dry.”

Read “Pelosi: House to stay in session until COVID-19 rescue pact” at KTAR.

Read “Schumer, Sanders call for Senate panel to address election security” at The Hill.

Read “Pelosi: We're supposed to be crushing the virus; Trump is crushing the ACA” at MSNBC.

This Week In Political Corruption:

Read “The CARES Act Sent You a $1,200 Check but Gave Millionaires and Billionaires Far More” at Pro Publica.

Read “Twitter And Facebook Flag Trump's Mail-In Voting Post for Platform Violations” at NPR.

Read “As Energy Secretary, Rick Perry Mixed Money and Politics in Ukraine. The Deals Could Be Worth Billions” at Time.

Read “Longtime Climate Science Denier Hired At NOAA” at NPR.

Read “Fact-checking William Barr: Is your vote no longer secret with mail-in ballots?” at CNN.

Read “Trump Says He Will ‘Negotiate’ Third Term Because He’s ‘Entitled’ To It” at Forbes.

Read “Pompeo’s wife assigned State Dept. work on secretary’s behalf using private email” at The Olympian.

Read “Companies Owned by This Billionaire Governor Received up to $24 Million in Bailout Loans” at Pro Publica.

Read “South Dakota AG Involved in Fatal Car Accident Kept Driving, Thinking He Hit Deer: Cops” at Daily Beast.

Read “Jacob Wohl Staged Fake FBI Raid on Business Partner, Actor Hired for Production Says” at The Daily Beast.

Read “Judge rules Chad Wolf likely unlawfully serving as Homeland Security secretary and temporarily blocks some asylum restrictions” at CNN.

Read “Democratic lawmakers call for an investigation into allegations of medical neglect at Georgia ICE facility” at The Hill.

Read “Wray says Russia engaged in 'very active efforts' to interfere in election, damage Biden” at Politico.

Read “Judge blocks 'politically motivated' changes to U.S. Postal Service ahead of election” at Reuters.


Music-Related News and Such:

Read “Jazz Lives in Clubs. The Pandemic Is Threatening Its Future.” at New York Times.

Read “Cocteau Twins’ vast influence lives on :: 24 great artists they’ve inspired” at Brooklyn Vegan.

Read “Pearl Jam Announce ‘Take-Three Pledge’ Vote By Mail Initiative” at Jambands.

Read “Bob Dylan Is Bringing Back His “Theme Time” Radio Show” at Pitchfork. “His first installment in over a decade airs September 21 in honor of Bourbon Heritage Month.”

Read “John Fogerty on Trump’s ‘Confounding’ Use of a Creedence Classic About Draft Dodgers: ‘He IS the Fortunate Son’ at Variety.

Read “‘American Utopia’ Review: One of the Best Concert Docs Since ‘Stop Making Sense’” at Indie Wire.

Read “The Cure Finished Their New Album While in Lockdown” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “Blues singer Lady A sues the band fka Lady Antebellum” at Brooklyn Vegan.

Read “Amoeba Music plans to open San Francisco store for first time in 6 months” at Date Book.

Read “A New Prescription: A Dose of Live Music for Hospital Patients” at Wall Street Journal.

Read “Bill Callahan: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert” at NPR’s Tiny Desk.

Read “Biggie’s Plastic Crown Sells for Nearly $600,000 in Sotheby’s Hip-Hop Auction” at Pitchfork.

Read “The Psychedelic Sound of Rüstəm Quliyev, King of Azerbaijani Guitar” at Bandcamp.

Read “Kanye West tweets video of himself pissing on a Grammy” at Brooklyn Vegan.

Read “Van Morrison to release lockdown protest songs” at BBC.

Movies/TV/Video Games/Etc.:

Read “49 Years Ago, Harry Belafonte Hosted the Tonight Show—and It Was Amazing” at The Nation.

Read “Warner Bros. Won’t Share ‘Tenet’ Box Office Data, Angering Rival Studios” at Variety.

Read “How the Kardashians turned celebrity into something monstrous” at The Telegraph.

Read “How Cuties, a French movie on Netflix, became part of America’s culture war” at Vox.

Read “Jeremy Tardy Parts Ways With ‘Dear White People,’ Cites Racial Discrimination” at Okay Player.

Books/Reading/Authors

Read “The Novel and the Secret Police” at Boston Review. “In Vineland, his underappreciated 1990 novel, the author of Gravity’s Rainbow anticipated a United States in which security would become the greatest good.”

Read “Bookstore Sales Fell 24.6% in July” at Publisher’s Weekly.

Science/Animals/Technology/Environment/Etc.:

Read “A ball python laid 7 eggs at the Saint Louis Zoo, even though she hasn't been around a male in years” at CNN.

Read “NASA sets out to buy moon resources mined by private companies” at Reuters.

Read “13 mysterious mummies discovered in Egyptian well” at CNN.

Read “Scientists baffled by orcas ramming sailing boats near Spain and Portugal” at The Guardian.

Read “Scientists find gas linked to life in atmosphere of Venus” at The Guardian.

Read “A perfectly preserved Ice Age cave bear has been found in Russia -- even its nose is intact” at CNN.

Read “'We Really Don't Know' If Bird Die-Off In New Mexico Is Related To Climate Change, Expert Says” at WBUR.

Food Cultures:

Read “To Save Madagascar’s Wildlife, an Entomologist Is Helping Revive a Bug-Based Cuisine” at Gastro Obscura.

Read “Japan Is Combating Rural Decline With a National Network of Ice Cream” at Gastro Obscura.

Misc. Oddities:

Read “Where Did the Monk’s Haircut Come From? A Look at the Rich and Contentious History of the Tonsure” at Open Culture.

The Weekly Town Crier (09/11/20)

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All the week’s news that’s fit to cry about (09/11/20).

We’ll Miss You:

Read ‘Jazz Bassist Gary Peacock Dead at 85” at Pitchfork.

Religion and Stuff:

Read “Christian Group Seeks Removal Of Dinosaur From Tucson McDonald's” (EDITOR’S NOTE: I have no idea if this is satire or not).

Read “Black Christians Play a Crucial Role in Athlete Activism” at Christianity Today.

Read “Falwell swipes at media: 'You got nothing'“ at The Hill.

  • Read “Trump's ex-lawyer Cohen links Falwell’s endorsement in 2016 to suppression of racy photos” at Reuters.

  • Read “Reforming Liberty University in the post-Falwell era should begin with the Falkirk Center” at Religion News Service.

  • Read my own piece on LIberty University idolatrous Falkirk Center: ‘We're All Biblical Literalists (Until We're Not)”

Read “The Manosphere and the Church” at Theopolis.

Read “Jen Hatmaker, Christian author and former reality TV star, files for divorce” at Religion News Service.

Read “Christian musician Sean Feucht held defiant Seattle worship protest after concert was banned” at Religion News Service.

Read “The Church of Individualism” at Mere Orthodoxy.

Race/Justice and Social Justice and Legal, or Gender or Sexism-Related Stuff:

Read “I CANCEL MYSELF’ White professor Jessica A Krug reveals she pretended to be black during entire career teaching African history” at The Sun.

Read “Akon Says His Senegalese Smart-City Will Be a Safe Haven for African Americans. Some Locals Wonder If There’s Room for Them, Too” at The Root.

Read “We Need to Talk About the GOP’s ‘Black Friends’ at The Nation.

Read “The Inevitable Whitelash Against Racial Justice Has Started” at The Nation.

Read “'The Gotaway': Online video produced and posted by the Border Patrol spreads fear of migrants” at Yahoo.

Read “White House memo calls for ban on federal agencies conducting training on "critical race theory," "white privilege" with taxpayer dollars” at CBS News.

  • Read “Trump Bans Diversity Training, Claiming It’s Divisive, Anti-American Propaganda” at Forbes.

  • Read “More Than Ever, Trump Casts Himself as the Defender of White America” at Yahoo. “Sorry liberals! How to be Anti-White 101 is permanently cancelled!”

  • Read “Trump says schools teaching NY Times’ 1619 Project ‘will not be funded’” at New York Post.

Read “On Kenosha and the difficulty of recognising Nazism in the US” at Al Jazeera. “Nazis have not disappeared. They have simply said they are not Nazis.”

Read “Census Work Has Been Winding Down, But A Judge Says It Needs To Press On For Now” at NPR.

Read “History gives us reason for hope that inequality can be beaten” at Open Democracy.

Read “Appeals court agrees R&B singer R. Kelly should stay jailed” at 12 News.

Read “She Was Sued Over Rent She Didn’t Owe. It Took Seven Court Dates to Prove She Was Right.” at Pro Publica.

Read “ACLU Calls On Tech Companies to End Their Alliance with ICE and CBP” at ACLU.

This Week In Protest-Related News:

Read “Car drives through protesters in Times Square” at Bronx 12 News.

Read “Thomas Massie praises Kyle Rittenhouse, says he showed 'incredible restraint” at Louisville Courier-Journal. "He didn't empty a magazine into a crowd."

Read “Portland shooting suspect killed by officers” at Axios.

Read “Naomi Osaka Wears Face Mask with Breonna Taylor’s Name at U.S. Open” at Democracy Now.

Read “Alleged Boogaloo members face terrorism charges in Minnesota” at Yahoo.

Read “Michael Reinoehl appeared to target right-wing demonstrator before fatal shooting in Portland, police say” at The Oregonian.

Read “Kentucky Derby 2020: Empty stands and armed militias at America's most famous race” at The Guardian.

Read “Jacob Blake says from hospital bed it "hurts to breathe" following shooting” at Axios.

Read “93% of Black Lives Matter Protests Have Been Peaceful, New Report Finds” at Time.

Read “Proud Boys Seen in Video Attacking Protester With Bat at Oregon Rally” at Daily Beast.

Read “Across the Country, Protests Demand Release from Prisons, Jails, Detention Centers” at American Friends Service Committee.

Read “'Because I'm Scared': Jane Fonda's New Book Details Her Journey To Taking Climate Action” at WBUR.

Read “Michael Brown protest organizer suing Phoenix police, city for wrongful arrest” at 12 News.

This Week With The Police:

Read “Gilbert officer charged with falsifying arrest report, court records show” at ABC 15.

Read “From soldier to worker” at Reader. “Police unions were born of resistance to discipline for brutality. Do they belong in the labor movement?”

Read “A Black man was detained while jogging for fitting a suspect description and later offered a job with the sheriff's department” at CNN.

Read “Call police for a woman who is changing clothes in an alley? A new program in Denver sends mental health professionals instead.” at Denver Post.

Your Weekly Coronavirus Roundup:

Read “After Beirut Explosion, Lebanon Sees A Spike In Coronavirus Infections” at NPR.

Read “Fact check: No, the CDC has not reduced the death count related to COVID-19” at WFLA.

Read “Sturgis Motorcycle Rally was 'superspreading event' that cost public health $12.2 billion: analysis” at The Hill.

Read “Gatherings of more than six people banned in England from next Monday” at NME.

Read “Governor Ducey Issues Enhanced Surveillance Advisory To Track The Impact Of COVID-19 And Influenza On Health Care Capacity” at AZ Governor.

Read “U.S. closes in on grim pandemic milestone: the 200,000th COVID-19 death” at NBC News.

  • Read Trump told Bob Woodward he knew in February that COVID-19 was 'deadly stuff' but wanted to 'play it down' at NBC News.

  • See “32 times Trump said the coronavirus would go away” at Washington Post.

Read “We Need to Take Care of the Growing Number of Long-Term COVID-19 Patients” at Time.

Read “Union president: Grocery stores should kick out unmasked shoppers” at CBS News.

Read ‘AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine study put on hold due to suspected adverse reaction in participant in the U.K.” at Stat News.

Read “California’s GOP Senate leader was under quarantine. She spoke with no mask at a huge prayer event anyway” at Washington Post.

Miscellany Cultural Items:

Read “Jim Carrey Pens Striking Political Essay Urging Americans to Vote Out Trump” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “Beyoncé Pledges Another Million for Black-Owned Small Businesses” at Teen Vogue.

Read “Are Your Texts Passive-Aggressive? The Answer May Lie In Your Punctuation” at NPR.

Read “California wildfires set record as more than 2 million acres are scorched” at San Francisco Chronicle.

  • Read “As Wildfires Ravage the State, the Dark Side of the California Dream Slinks Out of the Shadows” at Los Angeles Magazine. “Fires have always loomed large over the California landscape—both a cleansing promise and an obliterating threat. But like so much else these days, they suddenly seem out of control.”

  • Read “Shocking pics show blaze devastation at 'national treasure' Scots woodland” at Daily Record.

Read “Facebook engineer quits, accuses social network of 'profiting off hate' at CNET.

  • Read “Zuckerberg to "Axios on HBO": "Just wrong" to say Facebook driven by conservatives” at Axios.

Read “We Talked to the Host Accused of Doing “Satanic Rituals” In His Airbnb” at Vice.

Read “The Atlantic gained 20,000 subscribers after Trump dismissed it as a 'dying' magazine” at CNN.

Internationalities:

Read “The Ghost Towns Behind The Gates” at NPR.

Politics And Sucheries:

Read “Trump's Base Is Shrinking As Whites Without A College Degree Continue To Decline” at NPR.

Read “Trump Faces Fallout From Report He Calls Military 'Losers' And 'Suckers' at NPR.

Read “Trump Weighs Putting Up to $100 Million of His Cash Into Race” at Bloomberg.

Read “Kanye Loses Arizona Supreme Court Appeal, Off the Ballot In Key Swing State” at “AZ Law”.

Read “Schiff: Barr “Flat Out Lying to American People” About China Election Threat” at Slate.

Read “White House lawn, Rose Garden being re-sod after damages from GOP convention” at Washington Post.

Read “Polls show Biden lagging among Latinos in close Florida race” at Al Jazeera.

This Week In Political Corruption:

Read “'People Around The President Are Trying To Stop Him,' 'Times' Journalist Says” at NPR. “New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt says it's unusual for advisors to be so focused on preventing a president from breaking the law. "Trump's use of power is so unusual that we have a phenomenon here where the people around the president are trying to stop him," he says.”

Read “Trump Reportedly Spent $58 Million In Campaign Funds On Legal Fees And Compliance” at Huff Post.

Read “Strzok: Trump's financial involvement with Russia is very broad” at MSNBC. “"There are a variety of entanglements that he holds that ... are of great concern and present prime opportunities for leverage over the president."

Read “Whistleblower alleges briefings on Russian interference stopped because it made Trump look bad” at MSNBC.

Music-Related News and Such:

Read “Taylor Swift 'Shake It Off' lawsuit goes forward in Los Angeles” at Fox7 Austin.

Read ‘M.I.A. Shares New Song “CTRL” at Pitchfork.

Read “Slow music: Chord change in Germany of 639-year organ piece” at Associated Press.

Read “Foreign Artist Visa Fee To Increase By Over 50% In The US” at The Quietus.

Listen “to New Order’s First New Song in 5 Years” at Pitchfork.

Read “Holy Roar Records founder accused of rape, several bands respond” at Brooklyn Vegan.

Read “Rush’s Geddy Lee Confirms He’s Alive After Trending on Twitter” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “Netflix Announces BLACKPINK Documentary Light Up the Sky” at Pitchfork.

Movies/TV/Video GamesEtc.:

Read “Ellen Promises (Threatens?) to ‘Talk About It’ When Her Show Returns” at Vulture.

Read “'Keeping Up with the Kardashians' coming to an end on E!” at CNN.

Read “Peacock lands the gritty Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air reboot, gives it a 2-season order” at AV Club.

Read “Black-ish’ Spinoff ‘Old-ish’ Starring Laurence Fishburne, Jennifer Lewis in Development at ABC” at Vulture.

Read “The Return of Colin Kaepernick — To The Madden Franchise” at NPR.

Read “TMZ’s Newsroom Is A Hotbed For Racism, Misogyny, And Verbal Abuse, Ex-Employees Say” at Buzzfeed News.

Books/Reading/Authors

Read “Reed Hastings on New Book, Netflix’s Future — and Why He Fired His Last CFO” at Variety.

Design/Artsy Things:

Read “Explore 1,100 Works of Art by Georgia O’Keeffe: They’re Now Digitized and Free to View Online” at Open Culture.

Food Cultures:

Read “The Egyptian Egg Ovens Considered More Wondrous Than the Pyramids” at Atlas Obscura.

Read “Fuddruckers, Luby’s Restaurant Chains to Be Sold in Liquidation Plan” at Wall Street Journal.

Misc. Oddities:

Read “When Botswana Farmers Paint Eyes on Their Cattle’s Butts, Everyone Wins” at Atlas Obscura.

The Weekly Town Crier (09/04/20)

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All the week’s news that’s fit to cry about (09/04/20).

We’ll Miss You:

Read “'Black Panther' star Chadwick Boseman has died” at CNN.

Read “Trail Blazers on the Passing of Blazers Great, Cliff Robinson” at NBA.com.

Read “Itaru Oki 1941–2020” at The Wire. “The Japanese free jazz trumpeter and instrument builder died on 25 August.”

Read “Original Freedom Rider, Bill Harbour, passes away at age 78” at CBS42.

Read “Tom Seaver, Hall of Fame pitcher, dies at 75” at CNN.

Religion and Stuff:

Read “Former pool attendant details alleged relationship with Becki and Jerry Falwell Jr.” at ABC News. “The Falwells told him during that first encounter that they had visited a Miami swingers' club the previous night...”

  • Read “What Jerry Falwell Jr. Taught Me at Liberty University” at New York Times. "At Liberty, our minds may have been receiving correct content, but our hearts were being trained to love wrongly: to love political power, physical security and economic prosperity as higher goods than they are.”

  • Read “Trailer Park Boys Video Reveals Raunchy Falwell Family Culture With Many Ties to Liberty U” at Roys Report.

  • Read “Liberty trustees failed Falwell, too” at Alabama.com. ““You know who else was due some love and protection? The faithful and sincere members of the Liberty faculty who had to walk into the classroom each day and face students who were confused and angered by the brazen hypocrisy going on all around them.”

  • Read “Liberty University launches investigation into Jerry Falwell Jr.’s tenure as president” at WFXRTV.

  • Read “Larry Flynt: My Final Farewell to the Falwells” at Daily Beast. “The Hustler publisher, who won a landmark First Amendment legal battle against Jerry Falwell Sr., writes about Jerry Falwell Jr.’s fall from grace—and the Trump of it all.”

Read “As Billy Graham's granddaughter and a proud evangelical, I worry for our country under Trump” at Independent. “Where is the fight for the marginalized communities Jesus exemplified? The church has been quicker to condemn an NFL player peacefully protesting than they are the racism that brought the protestor to his knees in the first place.”

Read “One-third of evangelicals believe Jesus was a “good teacher," but "not God”” at Disrn.

Read “Christian Dandy Throws A Punch” in which Rod Dreher defends Eric Metaxas for punching someone: “You just get so sick of these people and their filthy mouths, and their berserk screaming at people. ... Sometimes you have to use violence to preserve order.”

  • Read “Rod Dreher: “I don’t care that Eric threw a punch at that guy. He had it coming.” at The Way of Improvement.

  • Read “Eric Metaxas says a protester on a bike menaced him, ducks questions about punch” at Religion News Service.

Read “John MacArthur: There is No Pandemic” by Warren Throckmorton. "In truth, 6% of the deaths that have occured can be directly attributable to COVID, 94% cannot. Of the 160,000 people who have died, 9,210 actually died from COVID. There is no pandemic."

  • Read “Los Angeles County Evicts Grace Community Church From Parking Lot” at Todd Starnes. EDITOR’S NOTE: This is not persecution.

  • Read “John MacArthur claimed there is 'no pandemic.' He was politicizing science, experts say” at Religion News Service.

Read “What ‘Black Panther’ Means for Christians” at Christianity Today.

Read “On the Front Lines, Some Pro-Life Activists Think Twice About Supporting Trump” at Christianity Today. “A pro-life spokeswoman quit her job rather than endorse Donald Trump for another term in the White House.”

Read “More than 350 faith leaders endorse Biden, citing 'need of moral leadership'“ at The Hill.

Read “American Christianity’s White-Supremacy Problem” at The New Yorker. “History, theology, and culture all contribute to the racist attitudes embedded in the white church.”

Read ‘Can Christians Justify the Violence on America’s Streets?” at Christianity Today.

Legal/Justice and Social Justice and Race or Gender or Sexism-Related Stuff:

Read “Authorities find 123 missing children in just ONE day during a Michigan sex trafficking operation” at MSN.

  • Read “U.S. Marshals find 39 missing children in Georgia” at My Fox 8.

  • Read “U.S. Marshals rescue another 25 missing and sex-trafficked children” at DISRN.

Read “Banksy bought a refugee rescue boat and its crew is saving lives” at Boing Boing.

Read the opinion piece “RNC Spectacle Revealed Sheer Hypocrisy of Trump's Immigration Policy” at Newsweek.

Read “NBA to resume games after player protest, turn stadiums into voting sites” at Reuters.

  • Read “NBA Players Urge Activism but Only 20 Percent Are Registered to Vote” at Mediaite.

Read “Why You Should Think Twice Before Sharing Your ‘Blackout Tuesday’ Post on Instagram” at W Magazine.

Read “Billionaire T. Denny Sanford Was Under Investigation for Child Pornography” at Pro Publica. “The richest man in South Dakota, T. Denny Sanford, was investigated for possible possession of child pornography, according to four people familiar with the matter. Sanford is a major donor to children’s charities and Republican politicians.”

Read “Activist Shaun King Accused of Profiting off Chadwick Boseman's Death” at Newsweek.

Read “California bans flavored tobacco sales in response to a surge in teen use” at Yahoo.

Read “King James' Profanity Prayer” by David Dark at Paste.

Read “Why is the Border Patrol undermining humanitarian aid efforts at the southern border?” at Christian Century.

Read “Ron Jeremy Charged With 20 More Counts of Sexual Assault” at Rolling Stone.

Read “Trump's latest weird theory involves a 'plane loaded with thugs' at MSNBC. “People lurking "in the dark shadows" controlling American streets? A plane full of black-uniformed "thugs"? What on earth is Trump talking about?”

This week in traitorous, white-supremacist Confederate monuments (and/or Columbus monuments // and/or other “American monuments” // and/or weird Confederacy stuff):

Read ‘Mississippi to vote in November on new state flag featuring magnolia” at CNN.

This Week In Protest-Related News:

Read “Amazon protesters outside Jeff Bezos' home construct guillotine” at Fox Business.

Read “Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, faces first-degree intentional homicide, five other charges in Kenosha protest shootings” at AZ Central.

  • Read “ASU conservatives raising funds for Kenosha protest shooter Kyle Rittenhouse” at AZ Central.

  • Read “Vigilante? Militia? Confusion And Politics Shape How Shooting Suspect Is Labeled” at NPR.

  • Read “Militias, Armed Vigilantes Encouraged Online to Head to Kenosha Before Deadly Attack” at NBC Chicago.

  • Read “Christian fundraising site has raised over $220,000 for accused Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse” at Raw Story.

  • Read “Trump Defends Kenosha Shooting Suspect” at NPR.

  • Read “Kenosha Protests, Violence Expose Racial Disparities Among The Worst In The Country” at NPR.

Read “One Author's Argument 'In Defense Of Looting' at NPR.

Read “Rand Paul recounts confrontation with protesters after RNC” at Axios.

Read “1 killed in Portland amid clashes between Trump supporters and counterprotesters” at Axios.

  • Read “Wolf says "all options" on the table for ending violent protests in Portland” at Axios.

  • Read “Oregon State Police deploying to Portland after fatal shooting” at Axios.

  • Read “Oregon State Police troopers deputized by feds” at KATU.

Read “Athlete Activism Against Police Violence Reminds Ken Shropshire Of '85's 'Sun City' at WBUR.

  • Read “NBA playoffs to resume after agreement on social justice initiatives” at Axios.

Read “New Jersey teen behind Black Lives Matter rally receives bill for thousands of dollars for police overtime” at CBS News.

Read “Mark Meadows: "Most of Donald Trump's America is peaceful" at Axios.

Read “Kentucky AG says he has received ballistics report in Breonna Taylor probe” at Axios.

  • Read “Court Records Show Drug Suspect Offered Plea Deal to Name Breonna Taylor as Part of 'Organized Crime Syndicate' at The Root.

Read “Arrest of Tampa protesters under scrutiny; lawyer calls it a ‘joke charge’” at Tampa Bay Weekly.

Read “ACLU Demands Resignation of Top Cops in Kenosha for Racism & Brutal Response to Jacob Blake Protests” at Democracy Now!

Read “Trump Moves to Cut Federal Funding From Democratic Cities” at New York Times. “The president directed officials to identify “anarchist jurisdictions” and move to withhold funds as he tries to build his campaign around the unrest that has accompanied racial justice protests.”

This Week With The Police:

Read “Police reforms face defeat as California Democrats block George Floyd-inspired bills” at The Sacramento Bee.

Read “The FBI warned for years that police are cozy with the far right. Is no one listening?” at The Guardian.

Read “NYPD to adopt guidelines for disciplining officer misconduct” at PBS News Hour.

Read “Los Angeles sheriff’s office says Black bicyclist fatally shot by police had dropped a gun” at PBS News Hour.

Read “Whistleblower Testifies Deputy Who Shot Gardena Teen Was “Chasing Ink” at Spectrum1 News.

Read “Ex-Boston Police Union Pres. Charged With Raping 4 More Children” at NBC Boston.

Read “The Little Cards That Tell Police 'Let's Forget This Ever Happened' at Vice. “Some cops give their friends and family union-issued "courtesy cards" to help get them out of minor infractions. The cards embody everything wrong with modern policing.”

Education and The Learnings:

Read “Photo of children using Taco Bell's free WiFi to do schoolwork sheds light on digital divide” at KCTV5.

Read “Man, 21, busted for posing as 14-year-old and enrolling in high school” at Boing Boing.

Your Weekly Coronavirus Roundup:

Read “Sen. Thom Tillis says he “fell short” by not wearing mask at Trump's RNC speech” at Axios.

Read “Iowa was reporting false COVID-19 information for months, until this nurse blew the whistle” at The Gazette. “State epidimiologist knew about the problem since July.”

Read “Far right using coronavirus as excuse to attack Asians, say police” at The Guardian.

Read “Rise in coronavirus cases as 123 positive tests overnight in Scotland” at The Daily Record.

Read “The U.S. Can Fix Its COVID Testing Failures” at Slate. “We need more rapid results tests, and we need them now.”

Read “Can you be evicted during the pandemic? It depends on your ZIP code” at CNBC.

Read “White Man in Alaska Demonically Screams in the Face of Walmart Worker, 'You Have No Authority Over Me' at Raw Story.

Read “'Small events add up to a lot': Limited gatherings quietly emerge as source of coronavirus infections” at AZ Central.

Read “Northern California church accrues $25,000 in fees for violating public health orders” at Religion News Service. “"If I get COVID, God bless you," Rev. Jack Trieber, the church's pastor said. "It's going to be a great funeral."

Read “Herman Cain account tweets coronavirus 'not as deadly' as claimed after his death from COVID-19” at The Hill.

Read “Ducey's maskless photos came as Arizona has spent $3M on 'mask up' campaign” at Tucson.com.

Read “Uber to require that passengers provide face-mask selfies” at 12 News.

Read “The Trump Administration Is Backing Out of a $647 Million Ventilator Deal After ProPublica Investigated the Price” at Pro Publica.

Read “Making Gyms Safer: Why The Virus Is Less Likely To Spread There Than In A Bar” at NPR.

Read “CDC requests states ready COVID-19 vaccine distribution by November” at Axios.

Read “Three Phoenix-Area Bars Shut Down By State Officials Over COVID-19 Violations” at Phoenix New Times.

Read “Surly Brewing Co. to close its destination beer hall in Minneapolis” at Star Tribune. ““This space is built for a lot of people, for socializing and getting together with friends,” said Surly owner Omar Ansari. “That’s not the way the world is working right now. There’s a pandemic going on, and there’s just no way for places like ours to make it in a COVID world.”

School Re-Openings:

Read “Utah coronavirus case numbers spike to 458 on Saturday, with another hospitalization tied to a school outbreak” at Salt Lake Tribune.

Miscellany Cultural Items:

Read “Study says Oklahoma ranked No. 1 in states with the most despair” at KFOR.

Read “FDA removes top spokesperson after 11 days on the job” at Axios.

Read “The Furious Hunt for the MAGA Bomber” at Wired. “Scarred by trauma and devoted to Trump, a man began mailing explosives to the president’s critics on the eve of an election. Inside the race to catch him.”

Internationalities:

Read “EU warns Turkey of sanctions as east Mediterranean crisis worsens” at Al Jazeera.

Read “French spying: Senior army officer investigated” at BBC.

Read “Russiagate Was Not a Hoax” at The Atlantic. “The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence confirmed what the Mueller report could not.”

Politics And Sucheries:

Read “Rival Themes Emerge as Race Enters Final Weeks: Covid vs. Law and Order” at New York Times. “Mr. Trump’s aides said he enjoyed the frustration and anger he caused by holding a political event on the South Lawn of the White House, shattering conventional norms and raising questions about ethics law violations. He relished the fact that no one could do anything to stop him, said the aides, who spoke anonymously to discuss internal conversation.”

  • Read “The GOP’s norm-shattering convention showed how the two parties are worlds apart” at PBS News Hour.

  • Read “Here Is How RNC Speakers Addressed Two of the Most Pressing Issues in America Today” at Slate.

Read “Mitch McConnell’s campaign hires Covington teen Nick Sandmann” at New York Post.

Read “Top general says no role for military in presidential vote” at Associated Press. “The comments from Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, underscore the extraordinary political environment in America, where the president has declared without evidence that the expected surge in mail-in ballots will make the vote “inaccurate and fraudulent,” and has suggested he might not accept the election results if he loses.”

Read “Donald Trump’s pathology of victimhood: It's dangerous for his own party — and the rest of us” at Salon. “As a clinical psychologist, what I see in Donald Trump is a classic and destructive pattern of malignant narcissism.”

Read “The Ford Administration Rolled Out a Vaccine Program Right Before the 1976 Election. It Backfired—And Not Just Politically” at Time.

Read “Kanye West Is Trying Hard to Get on Arizona’s Presidential Ballot This Fall” at Phoenix New Times.

Read “Steve Scalise draws fire and then doubles down over doctored video of a disabled activist” at NOLA.com.

Read “Fact Check: Trump's Address To The Republican Convention, Annotated” at NPR.

Read “Joe Biden call for 'lawless' rioters to be prosecuted in push back to Donald Trump's criticism” at The Telegraph. “'Does anyone believe there will be less violence if Trump is re-elected?'

Read “The Payroll Tax Delay Is Here, But So Is Confusion About It” at NPR.

Read “Facebook And Twitter Remove Russia-Backed Accounts Targeting Left-Leaning Voters” at NPR.

Read “U.S. Debt Is Set to Exceed Size of the Economy Next Year, a First Since World War II” at Wall Street Journal.

Read “Generation Z In The GOP: Young Republicans Reflect On The Future Of Their Party” at NPR.

This Week In Political Corruption:

Read “Justice Dept. Never Fully Examined Trump’s Ties to Russia, Ex-Officials Say” at New York Times. “The former deputy attorney general maneuvered to keep investigators from completing an inquiry into whether the president’s personal and financial links to Russia posed a national security threat.”

Read “Oklahoma Governor Asked EPA to Strip Tribes of Environmental Authority” at TYT. “GOP Leaders Quietly Working to Circumvent Supreme Court Ruling Giving Tribes Control of Half the State.”

Read “The USPS Is Actively Being Destroyed By Trump—Here's How to Help” at Yahoo.

Read “Trump encourages North Carolina residents to vote twice to test mail-in system” at CNBC. EDITOR’S NOTE: It is illegal to vote more than once in an election, meaning the president urged people to break the law. And he did it publicly.

Read “Postal Service Has Paid DeJoy’s Former Company $286 Million Since 2013” at New York Times. “Documents obtained through a public records request showed the degree to which XPO Logistics, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s former employer, is intertwined with the agency he now oversees.”

Read “House Democrats launch probe into Postmaster General Dejoy” at Al Jazeera. “The investigation comes amid reports that Dejoy illegally reimbursed former employees for political campaign donations.”

Music-Related News and Such:

Read “Public Enemy Announce New Album, Return to Def Jam” at Pitchfork.

Read “Turntable Lab’s NYC store has closed” at Brooklyn Vegan.

Read “Leonard Cohen Estate Considering Legal Action After RNC Plays “Halleujah” at Slate.

Read “Taylor Swift Spends a Fourth Week at No. 1 Thanks to Full Album Sales” at New York Times.

Read “Justin Townes Earle and the Burden of Names” at Paste.

Watch “Dave Grohl and 10-Year-Old Nandi Bushell Face Off in Drum Battle” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “Getting To Know Sundressed” at Something You Said.

Read “David Byrne addresses wearing Blackface in ‘Stop Making Sense’ promo video” at Brooklyn Vegan.

Read “Public Enemy’s New Album to Feature Beastie Boys, George Clinton, Cypress Hill, Run-DMC, More” at Pitchfork.

Read “Toots Hibbert Hospitalized in Intensive Care Unit” at Pitchfork.

Read “Soul Coughing’s Mike Doughty On His New EP Ghost Of Vroom 2” at Stereogum.

Read “Master P launches “Uncle P’s” line of food products as alternative to Aunt Jemima & Uncle Ben’s” at Brooklyn Vegan.

Read “H.C. McEntire :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview” at Aquarium Drunkard.

Read “Devandra Banhart Honors the Grateful Dead’s Blues for Allah Anniversary With Cover” at Spin.

Movies/TV/Etc.:

Read “Owen Teague Playing Tommy Stinson In Replacements Biopic” at Stereogum.

Books/Reading/Authors

Read “Douglas County Library Board of Trustees will investigate library director, staff over support for BLM movement” at Sierra Nevada Ally.

Read “Everything We Know About Stephen King’s New The Stand Miniseries” at Rotten Tomatoes.

Read “Donald Trump Jr. wants to use his social media power to disrupt publishing” at Axios.

Science/Animals/Technology/Environment/Etc.:

Read “The science of stoking fear” at Axios. “Academics codified it as the "fear drive" method in the 1950s, referring to the idea that engaging with fear can be the motivation for people to buy into anything that would make the feeling of fear go away.”

Read “NASA data shows glacial lakes swelling 50% due to climate change” at CNET.

Read “Musk Says It Will Be Possible For Owners To Telepathically Summon Their Tesla With Neuralink Implant” at Yahoo.

Misc. Oddities:

Read “Heart of Belgian city mayor found entombed in fountain” at BBC.

Read “Airline pilots reported seeing 'a guy in a jetpack' flying 3,000 feet over Los Angeles” at NBC News.

Local:

Read “'Black Lives Matter' could be painted on a street in downtown Phoenix” at AZ Central.