Two Presidents to Honor McCain Today | Canada Gets Trade Ultimatum

He was “an American patriot who served a cause greater than himself.” With those words, Vice President Mike Pence explained America’s outpouring of respect for Sen. John McCain, who died last week and lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda Friday. Today, at an official service inside the Washington National Cathedral, former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama will speak while the current president remains uninvited. A Navy pilot shot down over Vietnam and imprisoned for nearly six years, McCain will be buried Sunday at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

Next Wednesday, Canadian officials are to resume negotiating a renewed North American Free Trade Act, but the outlook is grim. In leaked off-the-record comments, President Donald Trump boasted that any replacement would be “totally on our terms,” and then vowed at a North Carolina rally not to tolerate “these countries taking advantage of the United States.” Perhaps dismissing it as fodder for supporters, Canadian officials appear willing to continue in spite of Trump’s threat to cut Canada out of a U.S.-Mexico pact if it can’t agree to American terms within 90 days.

After two Middle Eastern immigrants were detained in the killing of a German citizen last weekend, the eastern city of Chemnitz saw a rare display of forbidden expression: stiff-armed Nazi salutes as some 6,000 far-right demonstrators hit the streets. Some chased down and beat non-White passersby. Chancellor Angela Merkel decried the “mob-like behavior,” while some officials suggested “fake news” about the fatal incident incited rioters. Meanwhile the right-wing Alternative for Germany party, which has distanced itself from the violence, has planned its own protest for today.

Legal troubles are one thing. A new poll this week showed President Trump’s approval ratings at the lowest of his presidency as special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russiagate probe gains steam. In a Washington Post-ABC News poll, only 36 percent said they approved of how Trump is handling his job — eclipsed by 49 percent who supported congressional impeachment proceedings. That was before Friday, when lobbyist Sam Patten, who admitted helping a pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarch illegally purchase tickets to Trump’s inauguration, accepted a plea deal in which he’ll cooperate with Mueller’s investigators.

The Week Ahead: On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary committee will begin confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The summer vacation season comes to a close Monday as Americans mark Labor Day. And on Wednesday, top executives from Twitter, Facebook and possibly Google are to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee about foreign influence operations using their platforms.

Know This: A federal judge has rejected Texas’ request to invalidate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) immigration program, arguing that the program’s existed for so long that ending it would harm the public. The Trump administration has decided to cut off all American funding to the U.N. agency that helps Palestinian refugees. And a Brazilian court has prohibited jailed former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from running in October’s presidential poll.

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This isn’t fun in the sun. Sargassum algae is drowning baby sea turtles, dolphins and fish in its leafy, brown thatch. It’s especially bad in the Caribbean, with its rotting masses choking off beaches and rendering fishermen idle. Experts believe nitrogen fertilizer runoff from the Mississippi and Amazon rivers — or even the far-off Congo — is mostly to blame. For those managing the region’s response, there’s no hope of stopping Sargassum, so they’re responding as they do to hurricanes: by improving forecasting and preparedness before the next onslaught.

Despite decades of complaints, court orders and settlements, female employees of the U.S. Forest Service remain a minority and continue to endure sexual harassment, discrimination and bullying. Rangers and other staff members report instances of groping and exclusion — like requiring a physical endurance test of a pregnant firefighter — while the agency’s grievance system emphasizes clearing cases over punishing offenders. Now, eight female agents are taking on the Forest Service and the Department of Agriculture in a new class action complaint aimed at dismantling the inequity.

Did they select the one best answer? A movement to make aptitude tests optional in college admissions hasn’t lived up to its promise of promoting diversity, according to a University of Georgia study. Even though the 1980s-launched effort has grown to include more than 1,000 institutions, admissions data from between 1992 and 2010 found schools had become more selective while seeing no growth in underrepresented students. Test-optional advocacy group FairTest blames “crappy” data and cites other research showing diversity gains — something experts agree requires more than just testing reform.

This week, government representatives are in Geneva pondering battlefield use of autonomous weapons systems. That danger’s easy enough to grasp, but experts say the kind of algorithms that make robots work have lethal potential in more mundane hardware, such as autonomous vehicles. “Software is released into a code universe which no one can fully understand,” warns one of world’s foremost experts. Some believe new programming techniques could detect faulty code that leads to potentially deadly miscalculations — but getting tech companies to allow public oversight of intellectual property is more difficult.

The collision of politics and football under President Trump shouldn’t have been a surprise. Between his repeated attempts to buy an NFL team and his relationships with several owners, Trump’s history with the league runs deep. After a politicized Super Bowl — in which he backed the New England Patriots — and player protests against police brutality, presidential tweets slamming the league are the norm as fans prepare for Thursday’s season opener. But a key question stands: Has the once-unifying sport become polarizing, or is it all Trump’s doing?