WHAT'S BREWING
6 DEAD, 1,500 INFECTED AS CORONAVIRUS RAVAGES SAN QUENTIN Half a dozen inmates have died and more than 1,300 inmates have been infected by the coronavirus at San Quentin State Prison in Northern California, as advocates urge Gov. Gavin Newsom to release more prisoners. In late May, San Quentin prison had zero confirmed cases of the virus among its around 4,000 inmates. But after over 120 prisoners were transferred in from a facility in Chino — 25 of whom later tested positive for COVID-19 — an outbreak began. As of Tuesday, 1,369 people incarcerated at San Quentin and 184 staffers had tested positive. Only 13 inmates with active cases have been released so far. [HuffPost]
MARY KAY LETOURNEAU, TEACHER JAILED FOR RAPING STUDENT, DEAD AT 58 Mary Kay Letourneau, a teacher who married her former sixth-grade student after she was convicted of raping him in a case that drew international headlines, has died from cancer. She was 58. Letourneau was a mother of four having difficulties with her marriage in 1996 when Vili Fualaau was a precocious 12-year-old in Letourneau’s class at Shorewood Elementary in south Seattle. At about 1:20 a.m. on June 19, 1996, police discovered them in a minivan parked at the Des Moines Marina. [HuffPost]
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA WILL HAVE ITS FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT The next president of the University of California system will be Dr. Michael Drake, the first Black person in the role in the school system’s 152-year history. The University of California’s board of regents announced that the 69-year-old physician and recent head of Ohio State University had been appointed UC’s 21st president. Drake, who also serves as chairman of the National Collegiate Athletic Association Board of Governors, will be replacing Janet Napolitano, the Obama-era secretary of homeland security, who announced in 2019 that she would be stepping down. [HuffPost]
TIKTOK TO LEAVE HONG KONG TikTok said it will stop operations in Hong Kong, joining other social media companies in warily eyeing ramifications of a sweeping national security law that took effect last week. The short-form video app’s planned departure from Hong Kong comes as companies including Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, Google and Twitter balk at the possibility of providing user data to Hong Kong authorities. They say they are assessing implications of the security law, which prohibits what Beijing views as secessionist, subversive or terrorist activities or as foreign intervention in the city’s internal affairs. [AP]
THE FIGHT TO VOTE BY MAIL The largest effort in history to expand access to voting by mail is underway, with lawsuits filed in at least 16 states to ensure people can exercise their rights even during a dangerous pandemic. Political partisans and voting rights advocates alike are fighting in court to ensure every vote is counted in November and everyone who wants to vote has the opportunity. In the lower courts, they’re winning. A judge in Nashville, Tennessee, ruled in June that “the evidence does not support” the state’s argument that it would be “impossible” to drop its stringent requirements to obtain an absentee ballot. [HuffPost]
DRACONIAN LOCKDOWNS TARGET LOW-INCOME IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES On Saturday, without warning, more than 500 armed police officers surrounded nine public housing towers in Melbourne, Australia, and placed them under “hard lockdown,” after a number of residents tested positive for coronavirus. Under the hastily imposed restrictions, the harshest in the country so far, the buildings’ 3,000 residents have been banned from leaving their homes for any reason. Government officials have argued that the draconian measures are necessary in order to prevent the coronavirus from spreading throughout the buildings, which are home to many poor, minority residents. [HuffPost] |
