A White House document says parts of Utah are in the "red zone" for coronavirus cases. Top stories to start your Friday from UtahPolicy.com

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Situational awareness - July 17, 2020

Good morning from Salt Lake City

Let's Friday!

TICK TOCK

109 Days to the 2020 election (11/3/2020)

187 days to inauguration day (01/20/2021)

192 days to the start of the 2021 Utah Legislature (1/25/2021)

Here are the stories you need to pay attention to this morning:

FRIDAY TRIVIA

Today's question comes from Mike Mower:

What musical did State Senator Deidre Henderson and Salt Lake County Council Member Aimee Winder Newton co-star in while they were students at Bennion Junior High?

Send your guesses to me at [email protected].

We will select a winner at random who gets to ask next week's question.

Good luck!

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Today At Utah Policy

OTHER UTAH HEADLINES

Deseret News

Salt Lake Tribune

Other

NATIONAL HEADLINES

Brutal poll

Just 38 percent of Americans say they approve of the way President Donald Trump is handling the response to the coronavirus. 52 percent of Americans say they "strongly" disapprove [WaPo].

Coronavirus

The U.S. set another record with more than 70,000 new cases in a single day. It's the 11th time the country has set a new daily record for cases this month [WaPo].

Russian hackers are trying to steal data about U.S. efforts to develop a Covid-19 vaccine [The Verge].

The CDC has extended its ban on U.S. citizens boarding cruise ships through Sept. 30 [CNBC].

Partisan mask wars

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is suing Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms to stop her from enforcing a mandate that people wear masks in public [Bloomberg].

Economy

Another 1.3 Americans filed first-time unemployment claims last week [CNN].

Mortgage rates have fallen to record lows [AP].

U.S. retail sales jumped by 7.5 percent in June, which is better than experts expected [CNBC].

Target, CVS and Walgreens join the growing number of retailers who will require masks in stores [USA Today].

2020 election

Next month's GOP convention in Jacksonville is shrinking as organizers are limiting attendance to the event amid a surge in coronavirus cases [AP].

Big donors are flooding Joe Biden's campaign with cash to help him close the money gap with Donald Trump's campaign [Politico].

Republicans are warning President Trump his attacks on vote-by-mail could hurt Republicans in November [CNN].

Democrats are instructing delegates, House and Senate members and party officials to stay away from their party convention in Milwaukee next month [NYT].

The Supreme Court refused to hear a case challenging a Florida law that blocked some Florida felons from regaining their right to vote in elections [WaPo].

Twitter attack

Hackers apparently paid off a Twitter employee to help them hijack accounts on Wednesday as part of a bitcoin scam [Vice].

Here's a good breakdown of what happened during the attack [Krebs on Security].

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

Unidentified federal agents dressed in camouflage are driving around Portland in unmarked minivans and grabbing protesters off the street [Oregon Public Broadcasting].

Oof

Mary Trump says she heard her uncle Donald use the "n-word" anti-Semitic slurs. "I don't think that should surprise anybody," she said during a television interview [WaPo].

More trouble for the Redskins

More than a dozen women filed suit on Thursday claiming sexual harassment and verbal abuse by former employees of the NFL team [WaPo].

BUSINESS HEADLINES

Policy News

More National Headlines

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1867 - Harvard School of Dental Medicine is established in Boston. It is the first dental school in the U.S. that is affiliated with a university.

1918 - Russian Czar Nicholas II and his family were killed by Bolsheviks who held them captive for two months.

1938 - Douglas Corrigan takes off from Brooklyn to fly the "wrong way" to Ireland and becomes know as "Wrong Way" Corrigan.

1955 - Disneyland is dedicated and opened by Walt Disney in Anaheim, California.

1975 - An American Apollo and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft dock with each other in orbit, marking the first such link-up between spacecraft from the two nations.

1981 - 114 people were killed and 200 injured in the collapse of two suspended walkways at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Kansas City, Mo.

1984 - The national drinking age in the U.S. was changed from 18 to 21.

1996 - TWA Flight 800, New York to Paris, crashed off the Long Island coast, killing all 230 people aboard.

Wise Words

"The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy." Benjamin Franklin, Emblematical Representations, ca. 1774

Lighter Side

"Let's spend the money we're lavishing on police departments on other nonviolent alternatives like mental health resources, substance abuse resources or, if Tucker Carlson's the one calling, we can send the woke militia to force-feed him vegan sausage," [Seth] Meyers concluded. "Maybe he'll like it maybe that will be the end of it all."

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