8-20: Steve Bannon Is Charged With Fraud—PLUS "eviction cliff" & 23 OC Covid deaths reported

"Fraud."

✅Trump Phone Calls Add to Lingering Questions About Russian Interference -- More than 200 pages into a sprawling, 1,000-page report on Russian election interference, the Senate Intelligence Committee made a startling conclusion endorsed by both Republicans and Democrats: Donald J. Trump knew of and discussed stolen Democratic emails at critical points late in his 2016 presidential campaign. Julian E. Barnes in the New York Times$ -- 8/20/20

✅Orange County records first death of a child from COVID-19 -- The Orange County Health Care Agency reported the first local death of someone under 18 to COVID-19 — a teenage girl. A news release issued late Wednesday, Aug. 19, said the Health Care Agency confirmed what it described as a “pediatric death related to COVID-19.” The agency said the case involved a female in her teens “with significant underlying medical conditions.” Theresa Walker in the Orange County Register -- 8/20/20

 

✅‘No one is ready for it.’ Fleeing a raging fire amid the coronavirus pandemic -- Lloyd Broughton, 78, evacuated with little warning after a firetruck came up his road north of Vacaville at 3 a.m. Wednesday. Along with his wife, Anne, 73, and daughter Kristine, 35, they gathered their seven rescue cats and packed two cars. “No one is ready for it,” he said of having to leave in the middle of a pandemic. Anita Chabria in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 8/20/20

 

✅The tough questions pushing California to an eviction cliff -- Governor Gavin Newsom doesn’t want it to happen. Neither do powerful leaders in the state Legislature. Tenant groups desperately want to prevent it, and landlord associations say they also want to avoid it so long as they don’t bear an unfair portion of the cost. Matt Levin CalMatters -- 8/20/20

 

✅Obama torches Trump like American democracy depends on it -- Barack Obama went high. On the third night of the Democratic convention — a word that seems increasingly absurd to describe what is really just two hours of nightly programming from the DNC — the former president delivered a memorable speech that balanced torching the sitting president with assuring voters of the possibility of something better. Ryan Lizza Politico -- 8/20/20

 

✅Steve Bannon Is Charged With Fraud in ‘We Build the Wall’ Campaign

Mr. Bannon and three others are accused in a scheme to use funds raised for construction to pay for personal expenses.

NYT

     Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s former top adviser, was charged on Thursday in New York with fraud for his role in a scheme related to “We Build the Wall,” an online fund-raising effort that collected more than $25 million for the president’s much-touted plan to erect a barrier on the Mexican border, officials said.

     Mr. Bannon and three other defendants “defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors, capitalizing on their interest in funding a border wall to raise millions of dollars, under the false pretense that all of that money would be spent on construction,” Audrey Strauss, the acting United States attorney in Manhattan, said in a statement Thursday.

     Mr. Bannon was arrested early Thursday in Connecticut by U.S. postal inspectors and brought to Manhattan where he faced charges in a two-count indictment unsealed in federal district court. He was expected to appear before a U.S. magistrate judge in New York later in the day.

✅Trump Must Turn Over Tax Returns to D.A., Judge Rules Again

A federal judge rejected the president’s argument that a subpoena seeking eight years of his tax returns was “wildly overbroad.”

NYT

 

✅Judge rejects Trump’s latest bid to shield his tax records from Manhattan district attorney

     President Trump's lawyers had pushed to kill a grand jury subpoena for his tax records by arguing the district attorney’s order to produce documents was “wildly overbroad” and tantamount to “harassment.”

WashPo

 

✅Growing evidence shines a light on children’s role in virus transmission

     Studies on the subject have been too small to yield definitive answers. But a new paper finding high viral loads and high positivity rates in children joins other studies suggesting that some children may be “silent spreaders.”

WashPo

 

✅Unfunded Pensions Increasing Universities' Risk, Moody's Says

     Unfunded pension liabilities are posing increasing credit risks to public colleges and universities as market interest rates decline and investment returns fall below many pension systems’ assumed levels, a new Moody’s report shows.

     The liabilities will likely lead to greater required pension contributions from colleges and universities. Colleges with the highest pension liabilities are more vulnerable to economic and fiscal disruptions. But those with large amounts of outstanding debt tend to have the financial flexibility necessary to withstand pension challenges, the report states.

Inside Higher Ed

 

✅Colleges’ Sexist Scandal

CHE

     For the past six years, I have taught the literature and culture of the Iberian Peninsula to my students at Stony Brook University, which is part of the State University of New York system. Last year, I was awarded tenure. During my pregnancy, colleagues outside Stony Brook would ask, “When will you start your maternity leave? How long is it?” When I told them that my university — a public research university with famous faculty across the humanities and social sciences — did not have a maternity-leave policy, their jaws dropped. Female colleagues have dealt with this dreadful situation since time immemorial. Some, including in my own department, have taken a semester without pay to care for their newborns. Others have returned to the classroom with a 1-month old baby at home....