WHAT'S BREWING
NORTH KOREA VOWS MORE NUKES, BLASTS TRUMP'S 'EMPTY PROMISES' North Korea again vowed to build up its military force to counter what it perceives as U.S. threats and said there would be little reason for a personal relationship between leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump if Washington persists with sanctions and pressure. On the two-year anniversary of the leaders’ first summit, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Son Gwon said the North would never again gift Trump with high-profile meetings and concessions he could boast as foreign policy achievements unless it gets something substantial in return. [AP]
MNUCHIN SAYS BAILOUT RECIPIENTS ARE A SECRET The Trump administration said it plans to keep the identities of more than 4.5 million businesses that received a government bailout through the Paycheck Protection Program a secret. Normally, the Small Business Administration discloses the names of borrowers from the program on which it based PPP. But Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said his department considered that information “proprietary” and “confidential.” [HuffPost]
BIDEN MOCKED IN TRUMP CAMPAIGN FOR KNEELING IN CHURCH A campaign ad for Trump took a giant step beyond criticizing protest kneeling to mocking Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden for kneeling in a church. The attack is the latest sign that Trump may be losing his way in his battle against kneeling. Last week his press secretary Kayleigh McEnany declared that Trump was “very much against kneeling in general.” The blanket condemnation of kneeling triggered a wave of criticism from those who kneel during religious services, at memorials or to pray at gravesites. [HuffPost]
REPUBLICANS MOVE CONVENTION EVENTS TO FLORIDA After weeks of uncertainty about the future of this year’s Republican National Convention, the GOP said several of the convention’s major events would be moved from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Jacksonville, Florida. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) had refused to relax his state’s social-distancing restrictions for the event. But Florida has no rules -- and a burgeoning second wave of coronavirus infections. [HuffPost]
FIRST KNOWN COVID-19 PATIENT TO RECEIVE DOUBLE LUNG TRANSPLANT A young woman whose lungs were destroyed beyond repair by the coronavirus received a new set of lungs at Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital last week. It’s reportedly the first time a COVID-19 patient in the U.S. has undergone a double lung transplant. Dr. Ankit Bharat, who performed the surgery, told reporters that the woman — who is in her 20s and had no serious underlying medical conditions prior to contracting COVID-19 — had some of the most damaged lungs he’d ever seen. [HuffPost]
IN AN ELECTION YEAR, VULNERABLE GOP-ERS BECOME CONSERVATIONISTS Public lands activists and a handful of lawmakers have long pushed for full, permanent funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Anti-federal-land conservatives, appalled at the thought of more money being used to expand and improve the federal estate, have always stood in the way. Now two vulnerable Republicans are among those championing a bipartisan conservation bill that would permanently and fully fund the LWCF, as well as allocate $9.5 billion to address the mounting maintenance backlog at America’s national parks. [HuffPost] | 
