7-31: I put a spell on you

From Rough&Tumble:

 

✅A new strain of the coronavirus is dominant now. Is it more contagious? -- A mutant strain of the coronavirus that some researchers believe is more infectious is rampaging across the globe and has moved into the Bay Area, but there are conflicting views about how this tiny deviant is impacting people. Peter Fimrite in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 7/31/20

 

✅With California deaths surging, will Newsom have to do more? -- In a little more than a week, the state has set four coronavirus death records, hitting an all-time high — 193 deaths — on Wednesday. Experts say those numbers are the expected result of the surge in cases that started last month after communities around the state eased their lockdown restrictions. Marisa Kendall, Harriet Blair Rowan, Evan Webeck in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 7/31/20

✅Trump faces rare rebuke from GOP for floating election delay -- GOP officials from New Hampshire to Mississippi to Iowa quickly pushed back against Trump’s suggestion that it might be necessary to delay the November election — which he cannot do without congressional approval — because of the unfounded threat of voter fraud. Steve Peoples Associated Press -- 7/31/20

✅Record economic plunge, bleak jobs numbers reveal virus toll -- The coronavirus pandemic sent the U.S. economy plunging by a record-shattering 32.9% annual rate last quarter and is still inflicting damage across the country, squeezing already struggling businesses and forcing a wave of layoffs that shows no sign of abating. Martin Crutsinger and Paul Wiseman Associated Press -- 7/30/20

AND…

 

✅Journal Editor Regrets Publishing Racist Article

Inside Higher Ed

     Jonathan B. Imber, Jean Glasscock Professor of Sociology at Wellesley College and editor in chief of the journal Society, said in a statement that he regrets publishing a commentary by Lawrence M. Mead that many scholars say is racist.

     Publishing the piece "was a mistake, and one I deeply regret," Imber said. "My intent was to have this commentary published alongside two critical reviews of his 2019 book, Burdens of Freedom, on which Mead’s commentary is based, that identify flaws in Mead’s arguments. The decision was entirely my responsibility and no other member of the editorial board of Society was consulted or participated in that decision."

     Imber said he's "recommended the call for retraction," and that Springer Nature, Society’s publisher, is conducting an investigation to be completed shortly. "I deeply regret the pain that this has caused. I apologize to everyone affected by this," he said.

     Mead, an influential professor of politics and public policy at New York University, denies that his article attributing poverty among Black and Latinx people to their "culture" espouses racist views.

     [According to an earlier IHE article:

“Today, the seriously poor are mostly blacks and Hispanics, and the main reason is cultural difference,” [Mead] wrote. “The great fact is that these groups did not come from Europe. Fifty years after civil rights, their main problem is no longer racial discrimination by other people but rather that they face an individualist culture that they are unprepared for.”

Cultural difference, Mead says, “helps to explain the two most puzzling things about the long-term poor: their tepid response to opportunity and the frequent disorder in their personal lives.”]

✅Education Department Applied Pressure to Save Troubled For-Profit Colleges, Accreditor Says

CHE