WHAT'S BREWING
HERE'S WHAT HAPPENS TO HARRIS' SENATE SEAT IF SHE BECOMES VP With Kamala Harris back on the campaign trail as Joe Biden’s running mate, California may well have an empty Senate seat to fill come November. If Biden and Harris win the election in November, California Gov. Gavin Newsom will choose someone to fill Harris’ seat in the Senate. Unless the Democratic governor opts to call a special election next year, whoever he picks will serve out the rest of Harris’ term until January 2023. Already, Newsom is facing pressure to appoint a historic candidate. Harris is only the second Black woman to ever serve in the U.S. Senate. [HuffPost]
NEW YORK'S NURSING HOME COVID-19 DEATH TOLL IS CLOAKED IN SECRECY New York’s coronavirus death toll in nursing homes, already among the highest in the nation, could actually be a significant undercount. Unlike every other state with major outbreaks, New York only counts residents who died on nursing home property and not those who were transported to hospitals and died there. That statistic that could add thousands to the state’s official care home death toll of just over 6,600. But so far the administration of Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo has refused to divulge the number, leading to speculation the state is manipulating the figures. [AP]
TRUMP HAS ALMOST ELIMINATED INTELLIGENCE BRIEFINGS FROM HIS SCHEDULE Trump’s interest in taking intelligence briefings has been declining steadily since his first months in office and has dropped to near zero in recent weeks. Trump went from a high of 4.1 briefings per week on average in March 2017 to 0.7 per week since July 1, shortly after it became public that he had ignored intelligence reports about Russia offering bounties to the Taliban for each American soldier killed in Afghanistan. Monday’s briefing was the first in August and the first since July 22. That month had only three briefings scheduled. [HuffPost]
BIG 10 CANCELS FALL FOOTBALL SEASON The Big Ten presidents voted 12-2 to not play this fall, according to longtime sports personality Dan Patrick. Patrick said that the two schools in the league that voted to play football this fall were the University of Nebraska and the University of Iowa. “The mental and physical health and welfare of our student-athletes has been at the center of every decision we have made,” Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren said. [HuffPost]
NORTH CAROLINA GOP HOUSE CANDIDATE DEFENDS PICS FROM HITLER'S VACATION RETREAT A Republican congressional candidate in North Carolina first archived, then reinstated, photos on his Instagram account from a 2017 vacation to Adolf Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest retreat after a recent news article about them. The post shows 25-year-old Madison Cawthorn and his brother grinning in front of the Nazi retreat where Hitler often vacationed in Germany. “The vacation house of the Führer,” Cawthorn wrote in a caption for the post, continuing: “Seeing the Eagles Nest has been on my bucket list for a while, it did not disappoint.” [HuffPost]
WILL AMERICA LET COVID-19 BECOME THE NEXT HIV? Over the last two months, coronavirus cases have surged in the most marginalized neighborhoods of the poorest states. Latinx people account for 18% of the population but 33% of infections. Black Americans are nearly twice as likely to die and three times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19. Prisoners, farmworkers and meatpackers — all of whom are disproportionately likely to be poor and minorities — have the highest infection rates. For many epidemiologists, this pattern has a tragic precursor: HIV. [HuffPost] | 
