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Monday, August 10 

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CONSERVATIVE CRACKDOWN ON GLOBALIZATION The staggering death toll of the coronavirus pandemic and the deep dysfunction it has exposed will forever alter domestic order in the U.S. But lost in the flood of daily domestic tragedies is a shift that may prove as consequential as the pandemic itself: the death of the international political order commonly known as “globalization.” Across the world, the pandemic has broken supply chains and strained old trade partnerships. And the great economic alliance at the center of globalization ― the relationship between the United States and China is crumbling. [HuffPost]

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WHITE HOUSE ASKED HOW TO ADD FACE TO MT. RUSHMORE A White House aide asked South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) last year how an interested party might go about adding another giant presidential face to Mount Rushmore. Which president? Here’s a hint: Noem greeted President Donald Trump with a four-foot replica of Mount Rushmore that included his face when he traveled to the monument for a speech on July 3. The tidbit was part of a New York Times story about how Noem — and others — appeared to be sniffing around for Vice President Mike Pence’s job. [HuffPost]

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PUERTO RICO HALTS PRIMARY VOTING FOR CENTERS THAT NEVER RECEIVED BALLOTS Puerto Rico on Sunday was forced to partially suspend voting for primaries marred by a lack of ballots as officials called on the president of the U.S. territory’s elections commission to resign. The primaries for voting centers that had not received ballots by early afternoon are expected to be rescheduled, while voting would continue elsewhere, the commission said. “It’s an embarrassment to our government and our people,” said Pedro Pierluisi, who is running against Gov. Wanda Vázquez, to become the nominee for the pro-statehood New Progressive Party. [AP]

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BILL GATES: U.S. OFFERS 'MOST WORTHLESS' COVID-19 TEST RESULTS IN THE WORLD Bill Gates continued his unbridled criticism of the United States’ response to the coronavirus pandemic, calling America’s testing system “insanity” and stressing that the country was now facing “a pretty dramatic price” both in human death and wasted money. Speaking with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, Gates said it takes far too long to receive coronavirus test results in the U.S. “You can’t get the federal government to improve the testing because they just want to say how great it is,” the Microsoft co-founder-turned-philanthropist said. [HuffPost]

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'THE LORD' CREATED EXEC. ORDERS, CLAIMS WHITE HOUSE TRADE ADVISER White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the “Lord and the Founding Fathers created executive orders because of partisan bickering and divided government. That’s what we have here, but the president has taken action.” That probably wouldn’t hold up against a court challenge to controversial, confusing and ineffective executive actions Trump signed Saturday. The president said that these would help Americans weather the COVID-19 crisis, while House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called the orders “absurdly unconstitutional.” [HuffPost]

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SHOOTING AT WASHINGTON PARTY LEAVES 1 DEAD, 20 WOUNDED A 17-year-old boy is dead and 20 others wounded following a shooting at what appeared to be a street party in a southeast Washington, D.C., neighborhood early Sunday, authorities said. Police said multiple shooters opened fire into a crowd of people. An off-duty police officer was among those most seriously wounded. “She’s struggling for her life right now at a local hospital,” Metropolitan Police Chief Peter Newsham said. No arrests have been made. [HuffPost]

WHAT'S BREWING

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GEORGIA SCHOOL REPORTS 9 COVID CASES AFTER PHOTOS OF PACKED HALLWAYS GO VIRAL Six students and three staff members at a Georgia high school have tested positive for the coronavirus, the principal wrote in a letter to parents. Photos that went viral last week showed the school’s hallways packed with students in the first days of the school year. At least two students at the school were suspended for tweeting now-viral photos of students not wearing masks and packing a hallway, though district officials lifted the suspension of at least one of them after the student’s parents filed a grievance and the story received national attention. [HuffPost]

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U.S. CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE MET WITH ALARM ABROAD With confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. hitting 5 million Sunday, by far the highest of any country, the country's failure to contain the disease has been met with horror worldwide. Perhaps nowhere outside the U.S. is America’s bungled virus response viewed with more consternation than in Italy, which was ground zero of Europe’s epidemic. Italians were unprepared when the outbreak exploded in February, and the country still has one of the world’s highest official death tolls at 35,000. But after a strict nationwide, 10-week lockdown, vigilant tracing of new clusters and general acceptance of mask mandates and social distancing, Italy has become a model of virus containment. [AP]

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DEMOCRATIC HOUSE CANDIDATE APOLOGIZES FOR INAPPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR Alex Morse, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts, apologized after a prominent college group accused him of having inappropriate contact with students. Morse, who has served as mayor of Holyoke, Massachusetts, since 2012, “used his position of power for romantic or sexual gain,” according to a letter sent by the College Democrats of Massachusetts to Morse. The group accused Morse, 31, of regularly matching on dating apps with college students ― some as young as 18. [HuffPost]

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KRUGMAN: TRUMP'S ORDERS ARE THE HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE OF POLICY Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman is so unimpressed with Trump’s latest efforts to boost the economy that he has declared it to be the "hydroxychloroquine" of economic policy. The four executive actions Trump signed on Saturday included deferring payroll taxes — which fund Social Security and Medicare — from Sept. 1 until the end of the year for workers earning less than $100,000 annually. Trump also warned that he might terminate the tax if he’s reelected, which would kill the longstanding social service programs. His words about Obama's executive orders may yet come back to haunt him ... [HuffPost]

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HONG KONG TYCOON ARRESTED UNDER NATIONAL SECURITY LAW Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai became the highest-profile arrest under a new national security law, detained over suspected collusion with foreign forces as around 200 police searched the offices of his Apple Daily newspaper. Lai, 71, has been one of the most prominent democracy activists in the Chinese-ruled city and an ardent critic of Beijing, which imposed the sweeping new law on Hong Kong on June 30, drawing condemnation from Western countries. His arrest comes amid Beijing’s crackdown against pro-democracy opposition in the city. [Reuters]

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NEW YORK'S HOTTEST NEW ENERGY FIGHT A chain-link fence runs along 20th Avenue through northwest Queens. To the south are blocks of brick multifamily homes. North of the fence, power plants burn the oil and natural gas that feeds New York City’s insatiable thirst for electricity. That fence is about to become a battle line in the fight over the city’s energy future. One of the companies on the complex, NRG Energy, has quietly revived plans to replace its 50-year-old oil-burning generators with new gas-fired units, part of a $1.5 billion makeover the utility giant says will allow it to comply with state pollution rules while meeting electricity demand. [HuffPost]

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