Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of eighty-one.  Sunrise is 5:46 AM and sunset 8:15 PM, for 14h 28m 51s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 89.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1790, the first U.S. patent is issued, to inventor Samuel Hopkins for a potash process.

Recommended for reading in full —

William H. Frey writes Now, more than half of Americans are millennials or younger:

A close examination of detailed age data released by the Census Bureau last month reveals a startling fact: More than half of the nation’s total population are now members of the millennial generation or younger. The data shows that the combined millennial, Gen Z, and younger generations numbered 166 million as of July 2019, or 50.7% of the nation’s population—larger than 162 million Americans associated with the combined Gen X, baby boomer, and older cohorts.

To many Americans—especially baby boomers themselves—this news may come as a shock. For them, the term “millennial” has been associated with a youthful, often negative, vibe in terms of habits, ideology, and politics. Now, the oldest millennial is 39, and with their numbers exceeding those of baby boomers, the millennial generation is poised to take over influential roles in business and government.

But the current political environment suggests this takeover could be contentious. Millennials and their juniors (Gen Z and younger) are more racially diverse than those that preceded them, with nearly half identifying as a racial or ethnic minority. Social, economic, and political fissures between millennials and older, whiter generations are well known; there is no question that in his screeds against illegal immigrants, voter fraud, political correctness, and the like, President Trump has preyed on the fears of older whites about the nation’s changing racial demography—a strategy he continues to follow.

 Marc Fisher writes Three presidents embrace the struggle for rights. Trump suggests postponing the election:

Three presidents spoke in poetry, paying tribute to a fallen hero who believed — often against evidence to the contrary, including the cracking of his skull by state troopers — that America was good, its people driven by love to do right by one another.

One president, the current commander in chief, did not attend the funeral of Rep. John Lewis but instead spoke of dark forces in the country and suggested that the United States not hold its next presidential election on time.

….

Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton put on masks and traveled to Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church to say goodbye to a civil rights leader and Democratic House member who preached change, progress and hope. Donald Trump stayed home, spending the morning watching TV and tweeting, holding fast to his program of conflict, nostalgia and restoration.

Blastoff – NASA’s Perseverance rover launches to Mars:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of eighty-one.  Sunrise is 5:45 AM and sunset 8:16 PM, for 14h 31m 03s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 81.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1974, Pres. Nixon releases subpoenaed White House recordings after being ordered to do so by the Supreme Court.

Recommended for reading in full —

 Peter Whoriskey reports First he got $4 million in COVID-19 relief loans. Then he bought a Lamborghini:

One of the first things David T. Hines bought when he got $4 million in COVID-19 relief loans from the feds for his supposedly ailing South Florida moving business was a super-luxury Lamborghini Huracan Evo, authorities say.

Needless to say, the Italian-made sports car — purchased by Hines in May for $318,497 — was not on the list of permissible expenses under a Small Business Administration loan program meant to protect employees and cover other legitimate costs like rent during the coronavirus pandemic.

Hines, who was arrested Friday, also spent thousands of dollars on dating websites, jewelry and clothes, along with stays at high-end hotels such as the Fontainebleau and Setai on Miami Beach.

The SBA’s Payroll Protection Program totaling nearly $650 billion was approved by Congress as part of the CARES Act after the coronavirus struck the nation in March, but Hines’ and other similar fraud cases are starting to pop up in South Florida and other parts of the country. The PPP loans are forgiven by the government if they are properly used by businesses. Congress is considering another major SBA loan infusion as the raging pandemic continues to hurt the U.S. economy.

Federal investigators linked the Lamborghini to Hines, who appeared in Miami federal court on fraud and other charges Monday, after he was involved in a hit-and-run accident on July 11. Miami police impounded his car, and now prosecutors plan to seize it.

….

According to a criminal complaint, Hines’ four South Florida moving businesses applied for seven SBA loans totaling $13.5 million through the Bank of America, saying the money would be spent on at least 70 employees with a monthly payroll of $4 million. The bank approved three of his applications, totaling $3,984,557.

 Molly Roberts writes The delusional experiment of sports during a pandemic:

The Miami Marlins clubhouse is crawling with the coronavirus. At least 17 players and coaches have tested positive for covid-19; the Philadelphia Phillies, plus their umpiring crew and stadium staff, await results after their dust-up with the infected Floridians; the New York Yankees were in lockdown before heading to Baltimore.

That’s the box score only after opening weekend — yet Major League Baseball says it’s not planning on cutting short its already stunted season.

Meanwhile, the entire National Basketball Association has gone to Disney World.

The show must go on, apparently, because we don’t know what we’d do without it. We’re looking to sports for a grand reprise of our regular lives in a very irregular summer.

The illusion starts with a delusion: that it’s really possible to wipe away risk altogether amid a pandemic. Next come the efforts to pretend, at least for nine sweet innings or four quarters, that there’s no pandemic at all.

What we learned from Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook’s Capitol Hill testimonies:

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of eighty-four.  Sunrise is 5:44 AM and sunset 8:17 PM, for 14h 33m 13s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 71.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Unified School District’s board meets via audiovisual conferencing in closed session at 6:15 PM and open session at 7:00 PM.

 On this day in 1958, Pres. Eisenhower signs into law the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which creates the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Recommended for reading in full —

 Peter Whoriskey reports PPP was intended to keep employees on the payroll. Workers at some big companies have yet to be rehired:

But a closer look at three large companies that received millions from the $517 billion program shows that some companies have not retained most of their staff on the payrolls.

The Fairmont Grand Del Mar in San Diego, a luxury hotel owned by a group led by Richard Blum, a private equity chief and the husband of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), received $6.4 million from the program. The hotel has been closed and most of its hundreds of workers are unemployed and unpaid, union officials said. To maintain their health insurance, workers send money back to the company.

A large group of restaurant companies operating under the umbrella of Orlando-based Earl Enterprises — including Planet Hollywood International, Bertucci’s and Buca di Beppo — similarly received loans in amounts ranging from $26 million to $54 million, according to the federal data, but in the places most affected by the coronavirus pandemic, the restaurants employ only limited crews. The rest of the staff is unemployed and unpaid, employees said.

And the Omni Hotels & Resorts, owned by Texas billionaire Robert Rowling, were approved for multiple loans from the program — one for each of 15 hotels — totaling $30 million to $71 million. But seven remain closed, and at those, most workers are on unpaid furloughs, union officials said.

 Eric Tucker reports US officials: Russia behind spread of virus disinformation:

Russian intelligence services are using a trio of English-language websites to spread disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic, seeking to exploit a crisis that America is struggling to contain ahead of the presidential election in November, U.S. officials said Tuesday.

Two Russians who have held senior roles in Moscow’s military intelligence service known as the GRU have been identified as responsible for a disinformation effort meant to reach American and Western audiences, U.S. government officials said. They spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The information had previously been classified, but officials said it had been downgraded so they could more freely discuss it. Officials said they were doing so now to sound the alarm about the particular websites and to expose what they say is a clear link between the sites and Russian intelligence.

Between late May and early July, one of the officials said, the websites singled out Tuesday published about 150 articles about the pandemic response, including coverage aimed either at propping up Russia or denigrating the U.S.

World’s largest fusion project being assembled in France:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of eighty-three.  Sunrise is 5:43 AM and sunset 8:18 PM, for 14h 35m 20s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 60.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets via audiovisual conferencing at 4:30 PM.

 On this day in 1945, during thick fog a U.S. Army B-25 bomber crashes into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building killing 14 and injuring 26.

Recommended for reading in full —
Tom Jackman and Carol D. Leonnig report National Guard commander says police suddenly moved on Lafayette Square protesters, used ‘excessive force’ before Trump visit:

An Army National Guard commander who witnessed protesters forcibly removed from Lafayette Square last month is contradicting claims by the attorney general and the Trump administration that they did not speed up the clearing to make way for the president’s photo opportunity minutes later.
A new statement by Adam DeMarco, an Iraq veteran who now serves as a major in the D.C. National Guard, also casts doubt on the claims by acting Park Police Chief Gregory Monahan that violence by protesters spurred Park Police to clear the area at that time with unusually aggressive tactics. DeMarco said that “demonstrators were behaving peacefully” and that tear gas was deployed in an “excessive use of force.”

DeMarco backs up law enforcement officials who told The Washington Post they believed the clearing operation would happen after the 7 p.m. curfew that night — but it was dramatically accelerated after Attorney General William P. Barr and others appeared in the park around 6 p.m. Monahan has said the operation was conducted so that a fence might be erected around the park. DeMarco said the fencing materials did not arrive until 9 p.m. — hours after Barr told the Park Police to expand the perimeter — and the fence wasn’t built until later that night.

 Matt Zapotosky and Karoun Demirjian report What to expect when Barr is questioned by the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday:

Attorney General William P. Barr will tell the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday that President Trump has not inappropriately intervened in Justice Department business — even though Barr has more than once moved in criminal cases to help the president’s allies — and he will defend the administration’s response to civil unrest in the country, according to a copy of his opening statement.

Barr, according to the statement, will take a defiant posture as he testifies before the panel for the first time since Democrats took control of it, alleging that they have attempted to “discredit” him since he vowed to investigate the 2016 FBI probe of possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign, and the media has been unfair in covering unrest. He is expected to face critical questioning on his response to anti-police brutality protests across the nation, his controversial interventions in high-profile cases involving allies of Trump and many other matters.

According to a Democratic committee counsel, lawmakers will ask Barr about his role dispatching federal agents to respond to anti-police-brutality protests that have at times grown violent — first in D.C. and more recently, in Portland, Ore.

Your new lab partner: A mobile robot chemist:

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of eighty-one.  Sunrise is 5:42 AM and sunset 8:20 PM, for 14h 37m 26s of daytime.  The moon is in its first quarter with 49.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

 Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets visual conferencing at 4:30 PM, and the Whitewater Unified School Board meets via audiovisual conferencing at 7 PM.

 On this day in 1940, The animated short A Wild Hare is released, introducing the character of Bugs Bunny.

Recommended for reading in full —

 Ron Brownstein writes Trump’s Portland Offensive Fits a Long Pattern:

Trump’s alarms about “angry mobs” and “violent mayhem” in Democratic cities might allow him to recapture some Republican-leaning white suburbanites and energize his rural and small-town support, analysts in both parties told me. But as I’ve written before, his belligerent tone simultaneously risks hardening the opposition he’s facing from the many suburban voters who feel that he’s exposing them to more danger—both in his response to the policing protests and his unrelenting push to reopen the economy despite the coronavirus’s resurgence. In last week’s national Quinnipiac University poll, just over seven in 10 white voters holding at least a four-year college degree disapproved of Trump’s handling of both race relations and the outbreak.

The larger political implication of these battles is to deepen the sense that the nation is hardening into antagonistic camps separated by an imaginary border that circles all of the major population centers, dividing the metropolitan core within from the less densely settled places beyond.

Trump is determined to widen that trench. He is trying to rally red America by portraying blue cities as a threat, and then positioning himself as the human wall against them. Until now, Trump has advanced that divisive vision through rhetoric denouncing cities and through policies that cost them money and influence, such as eliminating the federal deduction for state and local taxes, trying to block Justice Department grants for cities that don’t fully cooperate with federal immigration authorities, and his renewed efforts to strip undocumented immigrants from the census.

The Washington Post editorial board writes Schools are moving toward closing for the fall. That is not their fault:

The White House has made it unmistakably clear that it wants schools to open this year with full in-person instruction, and that nothing — least of all the science — should stand in the way. But the actual decisions on whether to allow children back into the classroom are thankfully being made not by a president hellbent on making a political point, but by school officials who are listening to public health experts and consulting with members of their communities. Many of them are coming to the reluctant conclusion that the failure to contain the novel coronavirus — something that actually is the responsibility of President Trump’s administration — makes it unwise to return children to the classroom.

….

 If Mr. Trump wanted to take constructive action to get children back in the classroom, he would put in place the testing and other safeguards needed to control the virus rather than just browbeating the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention into becoming a cheerleader for his political agenda or trotting out his education secretary with absurd theories of how children actually block the virus.

Plant-based meats: More global food giants now developing plant protein alternatives: