WHAT'S BREWING
HEALTH OFFICIAL OUT TO MANIPULATE CDC REPORTS HAS DEEP RUSSIAN TIES The Health and Human Services official who has been pressuring the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to change COVID-19 reports to reflect well on Trump has troubling Kremlin ties stretching for years. Politico was the first to report last week that HHS Assistant Secretary Michael Caputo has been orchestrating a pressure campaign on the CDC to alter agency reports — and even stop them — to fit Trump’s reality-defying view of COVID-19. The president himself admitted that he lied to the public about the threat of the pandemic. [HuffPost]
COLIN KAEPERNICK CALLS OUT HYPOCRISY IN NFL'S RACIAL JUSTICE 'PROPAGANDA' Colin Kaepernick, who’s been unsigned by the NFL for years after protesting racial injustice on the field, called out the league for hypocrisy in appearing to champion Black lives while still not signing a player who kneeled with him. The activist and ex-San Francisco 49ers quarterback used the opening weekend of pro games to say that the NFL participates in what he considers performative activism for racial justice, given that safety Eric Reid remains unsigned. [HuffPost]
TIKTOK PICKS ORACLE OVER MICROSOFT IN TRUMP-FORCED SALES BID The owner of TikTok has chosen Oracle over Microsoft as its preferred suitor to buy the popular video-sharing app. Microsoft announced Sunday that its bid to buy TikTok has been rejected, removing a leading suitor for the Chinese-owned app a week before Trump promises to follow through with a plan to ban it in the U.S.The Trump administration has ordered ByteDance to sell its U.S. business, claiming national-security risks due to its Chinese ownership. [HuffPost]
ALL MICHIGAN STATE STUDENTS ASKED TO QUARANTINE Michigan State University has requested that all of its local students self-quarantine for two weeks due to “an alarming surge” in COVID-19 cases. The request follows at least 342 confirmed cases of the virus being linked back to the university since Aug. 24, when students began returning to the campus in East Lansing ahead of the start of the fall semester. This comes as the Dakotas lead the U.S. surge in virus cases, with the Republican governors of North and South Dakota both eschewing mask requirements. [HuffPost]
U.S. EJECTS 8,800 UNACCOMPANIED MIGRANT KIDS Trump administration officials have ejected 8,800 unaccompanied migrant children from the U.S. without court hearings since March 20 — taking no precautions to protect them from traffickers. Department of Homeland Security officials have suspended humanitarian protections for most migrants crossing the border, claiming that public health law takes precedence over asylum, immigration and anti-trafficking safeguards during a pandemic. Unaccompanied children were previously sent to the U.S. refugee agency, which is required under a 2008 anti-trafficking law. But compliance with the law has been suspended. [HuffPost]
ANTARCTICA IS STILL FREE OF COVID-19. CAN IT STAY THAT WAY?At this very moment a vast world exists that’s free of the coronavirus, where people can mingle without masks and watch the pandemic unfold from thousands of miles away. That world is Antarctica, the only continent without COVID-19. Now, as nearly 1,000 scientists and others who wintered over on the ice are seeing the sun for the first time in weeks or months, a global effort wants to make sure incoming colleagues don’t bring the virus with them. From the U.K.’s Rothera Research Station off the Antarctic peninsula that curls toward the tip of South America, field guide Rob Taylor described what it’s like in “our safe little bubble.” [AP] | 
