WHAT'S BREWING
U.S. REPORTS RECORD 100,000 COVID-19 CASES IN A DAY The United States set a new all-time high for coronavirus cases confirmed in a single 24-hour period on Friday, reporting just over 100,000 new infections to surpass the record total of 91,000 posted a day earlier. The daily caseload of 100,233 is also a world record for the global pandemic, surpassing the 97,894 cases reported by India on a single day in September. Five times over past 10 days, the United States has exceeded its previous single-day record of 77,299 cases registered in July. [Reuters]
WHO CHIEF SELF-QUARANTINES The head of the World Health Organization says he has been identified as a contact of a person who tested positive for COVID-19 and will self-quarantine. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on Twitter late Sunday that he is “well and without symptoms” but will self-quarantine in “coming days, in line with WHO protocols, and work from home.” The WHO director-general has been at the forefront of the global response to the pandemic, which has infected at least 46.5 million people and led to more than 1.2 million deaths. [AP]
CINDY MCCAIN REVEALS 'FINAL STRAW' THAT LED TO BIDEN ENDORSEMENT Cindy McCain, the widow of 2008 Republican presidential candidate and longtime Arizona Sen. John McCain, said one specific incident was “the final straw” for her with Trump. McCain, who has since endorsed Joe Biden, told “60 Minutes” it was Trump’s disrespect for those who had served in the military. “For me, the final straw was the, you know, ‘They’re losers and suckers,’” she said, referring to an Atlantic report that Trump had used the epithets to describe fallen soldiers. [HuffPost]
FAUCI: WE COULDN'T BE POSITIONED MORE POORLY ON COVID-19 Dr. Anthony Fauci painted a grim future in a bombshell interview with The Washington Post over the weekend, warning that the nation “could not be positioned more poorly” to battle the pandemic. “We’re in for a whole lot of hurt. It’s not a good situation,” he said. “All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors,” Fauci added. Fauci praised Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden for taking COVID-19 “seriously from a public health perspective.” [HuffPost]
TRUMP IS TURNING A TAXPAYER-FUNDED NEWS NETWORK INTO PROPAGANDA The massive taxpayer-funded collection of news outlets under the U.S. Agency for Global Media is supposed to be a nonpartisan booster of information and American ideals abroad. But over the past six months, Trump’s handpicked leader Michael Pack has dramatically reshaped the agency — to promote not news or democracy but the president himself. Trump and his appointee want to make the agency more vulnerable to political whims. [HuffPost]
TRUMP ADMIN. FUNDS PLASMA COMPANY BASED IN OWNER'S CONDO An obscure South Carolina company may be in line for millions of dollars in U.S. government funding to produce a coronavirus treatment after a former Republican senator with a financial stake in the business lobbied senior U.S. government officials. Plasma Technologies LLC has received seed money to test a possible COVID-19-fighting blood plasma technology. But as much as $65 million more could be on the way, a windfall for the company that operates out of the founder’s luxury condo. [AP] |
