Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of eighty.  Sunrise is 5:28 AM and sunset 8:32 PM, for 15h 03m 55s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 54.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1543, King Henry VIII marries his sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr, at Hampton Court Palace

Recommended for reading in full —

 David J. Lynch reports After the fastest recession in U.S. history, the economic recovery may be fizzling:

United Airlines announced plans to lay off more than one-third of its 95,000 workers. Brooks Brothers, which first opened for business in 1818, filed for bankruptcy. And Bed Bath and Beyond said it will close 200 stores.

If there were still hopes of a “V-shaped” comeback from the novel coronavirus shutdown, this past week should have put an end to them. The pandemic shock, which economists once assumed would be only a temporary business interruption, appears instead to be settling into a traditional, self-perpetuating recession.

When states and cities began closing most businesses in March, the idea was to smother the virus and buy time for the medical system to adapt. Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and a senior White House adviser, spoke of hopes “that by July the country’s really rocking again.”

But without a uniform federal strategy, many governors rushed to reopen their economies before bringing the virus under control. Now states such as Florida, California, Texas and Arizona are setting daily records for coronavirus cases and more than 70 percent of the country has either paused or reversed reopening plans, according to Goldman Sachs.

After two surprisingly strong months, the economy could begin shedding jobs again this month and in August, Morgan Stanley warned Friday. Many small businesses that received forgivable government loans have exhausted their funds while some larger companies are starting to thin their payrolls in preparation for a longer-than-expected downturn.

Nsikan Apkan and Kennedy Elliott report How the new coronavirus surges compare to New York City’s peak:

COVID-19 has been described as a once-in-a-century pandemic, with New York City as the iconic early epicenter for the United States. Now, as coronavirus surges across the country, many places are moving toward a New York-style crisis—and not only in urban areas.

Hotspots are flaring everywhere, from Washington State to Kansas to Florida, with many of these regions matching the concentration of cases witnessed at the peak of New York City’s outbreak.

WORST TWO WEEKS

The U.S. just experienced its worst two-week stretch, with more newly confirmed cases than at any point since its coronavirus outbreak began in early 2020. From June 25 to July 8, 674,750 Americans were diagnosed with coronavirus, and the nation’s tally grew by one million cases over the span of the past month.

With the recent surge elsewhere in the U.S., many areas are experiencing a greater density of cases than New York City witnessed during its two-week peak. In the past few weeks, 59 counties with at least 50 cases have experienced a rise in cases per capita on par with or worse than New York City’s peak. When looking at total cases since the pandemic’s start, 536 counties have case densities worse than one in 100 people.

Eavesdropping on Orangutans:

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will see late afternoon thundershowers with a high of eighty-four. Sunrise is 5:27 AM and sunset 8:33 PM, for 15h 05m 17s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 63.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1839, Ebenezar G. Whiting of Racine becomes the first Wisconsin resident issued a patent (for an improved plow).

Recommended for reading in full —

 Alex Samuels reports [Texas] Gov. Greg Abbott warns if spread of COVID-19 doesn’t slow, “the next step would have to be a lockdown”:

With Texas continuing to break records for new coronavirus deaths and hospitalizations this week, Gov. Greg Abbott reiterated Friday afternoon that things will continue to get worse. And if people keep flouting his new statewide mask mandate, he said, the next step could be another economic lockdown.

“Things will get worse, and let me explain why,” he told KLBK TV in Lubbock. “The deaths that we’re seeing announced today and yesterday — which are now over 100 — those are people who likely contracted COVID-19 in late May.

“The worst is yet to come as we work our way through that massive increase in people testing positive.”

….

As of Thursday afternoon, 2,918 Texas had died of COVID-19. The state also reported nearly another 10,000 new cases of the disease.

Nearly 9,700 people were in Texas hospitals on Thursday, too, the highest number since the pandemic began.

With cases of the virus and related hospitalizations rising at alarming rates, Abbott expanded his ban on elective medical procedures Thursday to cover more than 100 counties across much of the state. On Friday afternoon, he also extended his disaster declaration for all Texas counties in response to COVID-19.

Laura Hazard Owen reports One group that’s really benefitted from Covid-19: Anti-vaxxers:

“How Big Tech powers and profits from vaccine misinformation.” That’s the title of a report released this week by the U.K.-based nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate. Among the findings:

Covid-19 has been a growth opportunity for anti-vaccination sites. “Our investigation of 409 English language anti-vaxx social media accounts shows that they now have 58 million followers. For 147 of the largest accounts, with 49 million followers, we have calculated that they have gained at least 7.8 million followers since 2019, an increase of 19%.”

The movement is strongest on Facebook… “In our sample, anti-vaxx Facebook groups and pages command over 31 million followers, well over half of the combined following of all the accounts we studied. Anti-vaxx accounts have nearly 17 million subscribers on YouTube and 7 million on Instagram, but appear to be weakest on Twitter where they have 2 million followers.” The authors theorize that this could be because people are reluctant to publicly admit anti-vaccination views: “89 percent of the Facebook pages in our sample have more followers than likes, with the key difference that likes are visible to other users. In contrast, just 44 percent of the top 50 Facebook pages have more followers than likes.”

Opossums Enjoying Their Banana:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of eighty-three. Sunrise is 5:27 AM and sunset 8:33 PM, for 15h 06m 36s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 72.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1897, the temperature in Ashland reaches 115 degrees. (‘This temperature was recorded outside Harrison’s Drug Store, around 2:00 p.m.’)

Recommended for reading in full —

 Michael Gerson writes Trump is our ‘boy in the bubble’ — a right-wing information bubble:

So what are the sources of truth and authority in the land of Trump? There is the cool rationality of right-wing Twitter. There is the wisdom of golfing buddies. There is a constant consumption and regurgitation of cable television. There is Tucker Carlson for advice on epidemiology, Jeanine Pirro on constitutional theory, Lou Dobbs on immigration policy, Sean Hannity to polish his shoes.

We have entered a genuine crisis of truth. The president of the United States is allowing only inputs that reinforce his instincts. He is operating based on a set of views and assumptions that have no relation to the lives of Americans. The African American experience of injustice doesn’t matter to him. The deaths of the elderly from a preventable disease don’t register. The struggles of Americans in a disease-cursed economy are not even admitted. Instead, we get a huge helping of denial with a side of racism.

Does Trump really think this is the path to reelection? Does he believe that most Americans will give him a pat on the back for a job well done? Yes, he appears to believe this. It is part of his delusion to believe it is always November 2016. Hillary Clinton is still his opponent. The polls are still weighted against him. The experts and doubters will again be humiliated. If only he stays the course of polarization and intolerance. If only he refuses to doubt his bigotry and his destiny.

Emily Kassie and Barbara Marcolini report How ICE Exported the Coronavirus:

Admild, an undocumented immigrant from Haiti, was feeling sick as he approached the deportation plane that was going to take him back to the country he had fled in fear. Two weeks before that day in May, while being held at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Louisiana, he had tested positive for the coronavirus — and he was still showing symptoms.

He disclosed his condition to an ICE official at the airport, who sent him to a nurse.

“She just gave me Tylenol,” said Admild, who feared reprisals if his last name was published. Not long after, he was back on the plane before landing in Port-au-Prince, one of more than 40,000 immigrants deported from the United States since March, according to ICE records.

Even as lockdowns and other measures have been taken around the world to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, ICE has continued to detain people, move them from state to state and deport them.

An investigation by The New York Times in collaboration with The Marshall Project reveals how unsafe conditions and scattershot testing helped turn ICE into a domestic and global spreader of the virus — and how pressure from the Trump administration led countries to take in sick deportees.

Mars: Why now? A three minute guide:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will see afternoon thundershowers with a high of eighty-nine. Sunrise is 5:26 AM and sunset 8:34 PM, for 15h 07m 53s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 81.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1868, the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing African Americans full citizenship and all persons in the United States due process of law.

Recommended for reading in full —

 Ryan Mac reports Facebook Said It “Stands Firmly Against Hate.” It’s Currently Running An Ad From White Nationalists:

On Tuesday, ahead of a meeting with social justice organizations and the release of a civil rights audit that took two years to complete, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg wrote on her personal page that the company “stands firmly against hate.”

But as Sandberg hit publish, the social network was running an ad from a white nationalist Facebook page.

Since July 4, the company has been running an ad from “White Wellbeing Australia,” a two-month old Facebook page with 386 followers that has posted about a supposed “#whitegenocide” and fearmongered about the erasure of white children.

“White people make up just 8% of the world’s population so if you flood all white majority countries with nonwhites you eliminate white children for ever,” White Wellbeing Australia’s Facebook ad read, accompanied by a cartoon drawing of a white woman. “There will still be a billion Africans in Africa a billion Indians in India and 2 billion Asians in Asia.”

(Private companies like Facebook should be able to run – and remove – ads as they wish. Censorship is a government action; private publishers imposing terms of service are not ‘censoring’ readers or advertisers – they’re enforcing a private agreement. Facebook seems to enforce its own private policies only sporadically, and therein lies that platform’s contentious conduct. Facebook’s controversies are its own fault — major advertisers withholding support from Facebook for its inconsistency is an understandable reaction to others’ racist ads or posts that would sit alongside ads for these major advertisers’ brands.)

Meagan Flynn reports Leader of fake church peddling bleach as covid-19 cure sought Trump’s support. Instead he got federal charges:

In April, when President Trump mused whether injecting patients with disinfectant could kill the coronavirus, perhaps no one was more thrilled about the suggestion than Mark Grenon.

Grenon runs a fake church with his sons in Florida that sells people a life-threatening toxic bleach product he calls the Miracle Mineral Solution, federal officials say, which he fraudulently claims cures everything from covid-19 to cancer.

“Trump has got the MMS and all the info!!! Things are happening folks!” Grenon, 62, wrote on Facebook on April 24, linking to Trump’s comments. “Lord help others to see the Truth!”

Grenon had made $500,000 in 2019 alone selling his solutions to thousands of vulnerable, sick people across the country, according to the Justice Department, even though the Food and Drug Administration had warned for years that people could die if they drank MMS products, which are essentially bleach.

What it Means to Be American From A Naturalized Immigrant Judge:

Milwaukee Magistrate Judge Nancy Joseph often presides over naturalization ceremonies as immigrants become our nation’s newest Americans. As a native Haitian, now naturalized citizen, it’s a journey she’s intimately familiar with. She explains why, to her, being an American means being hopeful about what the United States can be.

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of ninety-one. Sunrise is 5:25 AM and sunset 8:34 PM, for 15h 09m 05s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 88.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1947, broadcast reports that a UFO crash landed in Roswell, New Mexico become known as the Roswell UFO incident.

Recommended for reading in full —

The AP reports Trump donors among early recipients of coronavirus loans:

WASHINGTON (AP) — As much as $273 million in federal coronavirus aid was awarded to more than 100 companies that are owned or operated by major donors to President Donald Trump’s election efforts, according to an Associated Press analysis of federal data.

Many were among the first to be approved for a loan in early April, when the administration was struggling to launch the lending program. And only eight businesses had to wait until early May before securing the aid, according to the AP’s review of data released Monday.

Quinta Jurecic and Benjamin Wittes write Trump Is Campaigning on a Platform of Abject Failure:

Trump’s case has obvious problems, both moral and intellectual. But, more pragmatically, the argument is flawed from an electoral standpoint. For example, even voters who believe that Trump deserves credit for the pre-coronavirus economy may worry that his disastrous response to the virus has contributed to the economic devastation the country now faces. Trump’s approval rating on his handling of the pandemic is not good; a solid and growing majority disapproves of it, and a whopping 85 percent of the country is either somewhat or extremely worried about the economy. Those aren’t good numbers against which to ask for a vote as an incumbent.

Moreover, the human costs of the pandemic beg for an electoral reckoning, one that Biden is likely to demand of Trump and to which the current president is extremely vulnerable. His propensity to wish the matter away only exacerbates this problem. And the United States’s performance cannot convincingly be portrayed as admirable in the face of rising COVID-19 case numbers not seen anywhere else in the developed world.

The attempt to tag Biden with the excesses of every anarchist protester is also unpersuasive. Whatever Biden is, he’s no leftist firebrand, and his rhetoric has not given aid or comfort to demonstrators engaged in illegal activity—who are not obviously part of his political camp in any event. Painting him as responsible for controlling the supposed mob Trump warns about will be tricky, particularly because Trump himself is the incumbent, and many Democratic primary voters supported Biden as a moderate alternative to more radical choices—as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, no moderate herself, pointed outrecently. Finally, despite hopeful noises from his campaign that Trump’s culture-war shtick will ingratiate him with frightened suburban white women, the polls don’t bear this out. Rather, the attempt to stand behind law enforcement against protesters is actually unpopular, given the current public horror at police behavior, and sympathy with the large majority of protesters who have remained peaceful.

So Trump is swimming upriver with this case.

Artificial Feathers Let This Robotic Bird Fly With Incredible Agility: