9-11: Was the novel coronavirus on the loose in Los Angeles way back in December? Atlas slugged. Cal State online in Spring. The college crowd much prefers Biden

✅Biden Beats Trump in Higher Ed Contributions

—Inside Higher Ed

     Though the nation finds itself deeply divided, it’s clear whom employees at the nation’s higher education institutions are supporting financially in the presidential race.

     According to federal elections records, those who listed their employer as a college or university have given Democratic candidate Joe Biden about $4.9 million in contributions, more than five times as much as the $890,000, including donations from for-profit college executives, that they have given President Trump.

 

✅Mental Health Needs Rise With Pandemic

—Inside Higher Ed

     Several recent surveys of students suggest their mental well-being has been devastated by the pandemic’s social and economic consequences, as well as the continued uncertainty about their college education and postcollege careers. Still reeling from the emergency closures of campuses across the country during the spring semester and the sudden shifts to online instruction, students are now worried about the fall semester and whether campuses that reopened for in-person instruction can remain open as COVID-19 infections spread among students and panicked college administrators quickly shift gears and send students who'd recently arrived back home.

 

✅Cal State to Stay Virtual in Spring 2021

—Inside Higher Ed

     …All 23 campuses of the California State University system will continue to operate primarily with virtual instruction during the spring semester of 2021.  

     System officials announced the plans for the academic term beginning next January in an email to the university Wednesday….

 

Virudhunagar is a town and the admin-
istrative headquarters of the
Virudhunagar district in the Indian 
state of Tamil Nadu.

✅Slouching Toward Equity: The lonely task of the chief diversity officer
—CHE
     We will remember this summer.
     To remember it will hurt, because what we have gone through, what we are still going through, involves a lot of pain. It is that very pain that has pushed the summer of 2020 deep into the soft tissue of our collective memory, that has made it stick to the walls of unforgetting. As with any moment of great and terrible political possibility, though, how we will remember all this — as a turning point, good or bad, or as a squashed carcass on the highway of historical sameness — is up to us, all of us, and what we do now. And, if nothing else, the mass protests for racial justice have been a painfully clear message that something needs to be done....

 

From Rough&Tumble:

✅The coronavirus may have reached Los Angeles even before China announced its outbreak -- Was the novel coronavirus on the loose in Los Angeles way back in December, before the World Health Organization was even aware of an unusual cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan, China? A new analysis of medical records from UCLA hospitals and clinics suggests the answer might be yes. Karen Kaplan in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 9/10/20

 

✅Fires, Blackouts and Toxic Air: This Is Climate Change in California -- Multiple mega fires burning more than three million acres. Millions of residents smothered in toxic air. Rolling blackouts and triple-digit heat waves. Climate change, in the words of one scientist, is smacking California in the face. Thomas Fuller and Christopher Flavelle in the New York Times$ -- 9/11/20

 

✅False Rumors That Activists Set Wildfires Exasperate Officials -- Officials dealing with catastrophic fires on the West Coast have had to counter social media rumors that the blazes were set by antifascist activists, publicly pleading that people verify information before sharing it. Despite their efforts, misinformation about the origin of the fires — which have killed at least 15 people and consumed millions of acres — continues to spread on Facebook and Twitter. Kate Conger, Davey Alba and Mike Baker in the New York Times$ -- 9/11/20

 

✅Fraud likely driving suspicious spike in unemployment claims -- California's unemployment agency acknowledged Thursday that a sharp spike in continued Pandemic Unemployment Assistance claims — which more than doubled in just two weeks, according to new federal data — appears to be related to a spate of fraud plaguing the department. Katy Murphy Politico -- 9/11/20

Veluthur is a village in Thrissur district 
in the state of Kerala, India.

✅Scott Atlas, pandemic adviser to Trump, slammed by Stanford health experts -- Dozens of Stanford Medical School faculty members signed an open letter this week denouncing Dr. Scott Atlas — a former Stanford professor now serving as President Trump’s pandemic adviser — saying “many of his opinions and statements run counter to established science.” Michael Williams in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 9/11/20

 ✅California death toll tops 14,000, but new coronavirus cases continue to decline -- The cumulative death toll rose to 14,021, up by 31 from Wednesday, but overall the state has seen deaths flatten out and new reported cases trend downward. The seven-day average of new cases on Wednesday stood at 3,742, according to data compiled by The Times — the first time new cases dropped below 4,000 since June 21. Maura Dolan in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 9/11/20

 

✅High numbers of Los Angeles patients complained about coughs as early as December, study says -- The number of patients complaining of coughs and respiratory illnesses surged at a sprawling Los Angeles medical system from late December through February, raising questions about whether the novel coronavirus was spreading earlier than thought, according to a study of electronic medical records. Ben Guarino in the Washington Post$ -- 9/11/20