11-14: Biden Implores Trump to Confront a Surging Pandemic; OC Covid spike continues

✅Biden Implores Trump to Confront a Surging Pandemic -- President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. demanded on Friday that President Trump do more to confront the coronavirus infections exploding across the country, calling the federal response “woefully lacking” even as Mr. Trump broke a 10-day silence on the pandemic to threaten to withhold a vaccine from New York. Michael D. Shear in the New York Times$ -- 11/14/20 

✅Waiting for a Vaccine 

—Inside Higher Ed 

     Promising news about potential vaccine candidates brings a shred of hope to higher ed, but medical experts say “normal” is still several months away. 

✅Just How Dishonest Are Most Students? 

—NYT opinion: Christian B. Miller 

✅Newton’s Daunting Masterpiece Had a Wide Audience, Historians Find 

The discovery suggests that “Principia” had a stronger impact on Enlightenment science than previous research suggested 

—NYT 

✅The Pandemic’s Future — and Ours 

—NYT (book review) 

✅Parents, students push colleges to open more in spring: ‘I wish I was in a dorm with my friends’ 

Students are tiring of remote instruction, and parents are tired of paying for it. Many also point to colleges that avoided shutdowns this fall and ask why that can’t happen everywhere. 

—WashPo 

✅Pandemic on course to overwhelm U.S. health system before Biden takes office 

The country’s health care system is already buckling under the load of the resurgent outbreak that’s approaching 10 million cases nationwide.

—Politico

The spike continues

11-13: California faces winter of misery as coronavirus spreading like ‘fire’; California hits 1 million coronavirus cases; OC Covid SPIKE!

✅Hospitalizations Climb As Second Coronavirus Wave Exposes New Case Rate Fronts Across OC 

—Voice of OC 

     Orange County’s second wave of coronavirus infections is putting more and more people in the hospital and making it clearer to epidemiologists and public health experts the potential for a situation like — or even worse than — the region’s summer sickness wave. 

     County officials, who have long been eager to move into less restrictive tiers to reopen more sectors of the local economy, canceled their weekly news conference on Thursday for public virus information just a few hours before publishing new data that points to a worsening situation on their hands…. 

     “Given sort of the trends — not just in OC, but across the country — it’s not looking good. I think there’s a real strong potential that it could be a lot worse than in the summer,” said University of California, Irvine epidemiologist Sanghyuk Shin in a phone interview…. 

     Shin — who specializes in studying how diseases, like Tuberculosis, spreads through aerosol droplets when people talk, cough, yell, sneeze and sing — said COVID-19 spreads much the same way.     

     “That’s what the epidemiological evidence points to, as well as the environmental science and engineering folks … those experiments point to that as a primary mode of spread,” Shin said…. 

     “The second wave is starting, I would say,” [epidemiologist Andrew] Noymer said. “We don’t wanna see ICUs in the 80’s and 90’s and so on … I’m frankly concerned.”…. 

✅Appeals Court Backs Harvard on Affirmative Action 

Judges rule there is no evidence of discrimination against Asian Americans. Case is headed to Supreme Court. 

—Inside Higher Ed 

✅Harvard Doesn’t Discriminate Against Asian American Applicants, U.S. Appeals Court Rules 

—CHE 

✅Colleges Ask Professors to Return to the Classroom. Their Answer? That’s ‘Reckless.’ 

On-campus learning is critical to student success, leaders say. And in some cases, college budgets may hinge on it. 

—CHE 

✅California hits 1 million coronavirus cases as L.A. County urges travel quarantine -- Coronavirus infections in California are racing upward at a level not seen since the summer, with the state surpassing 1 million cases on Thursday, and health officials are warning dire action must be taken to stop the spread of the illness. Luke Money in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/13/20 

✅Biden finds support among Republicans as Trump scrambles to salvage his strategy to contest the election -- President-elect Joe Biden began seeing more support, if indirectly, from Republicans on Thursday as senior GOP lawmakers called for him to receive classified briefings even as the Trump administration continued to bar a formal transition. Seung Min Kim, Josh Dawsey, Matt Viser and Jon Swaine in the Washington Post$ -- 11/13/20 

✅Election Officials Directly Contradict Trump on Voting System Fraud -- Hours after President Trump repeated a baseless report that a voting machine system “deleted 2.7 million Trump votes nationwide,” he was directly contradicted by a group of federal, state and local election officials, who issued a statement on Thursday declaring flatly that the election “was the most secure in American history” and that “there is no evidence” any voting systems were compromised. David E. Sanger, Matt Stevens and Nicole Perlroth in the New York Times$ -- 11/13/20 

✅As Trump stews over election, he mostly ignores the public duties of the presidency -- On Thursday, six American service members were killed in a helicopter crash during a peacekeeping mission in Egypt. Tropical Storm Eta made landfall in North Florida, contributing to severe flooding. The number of Americans infected with the novel coronavirus continued at a record-setting pace, sending the stock market tumbling. David Nakamura in the Washington Post$ -- 11/13/20 

✅California faces winter of misery as coronavirus spreading like ‘fire’ -- Coronavirus is again on the rise in California, and the big question is: How bad it will get? With the holidays approaching, state officials have already rolled back reopenings in some counties as case numbers surge. Officials now fear more hospitalizations and deaths, and they are debating whether more intense measures will be needed to slow the infection rate. Maura Dolan, Luke Money in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/12/20

✅Today's OC Covid numbers: here

Spike!

11-12: Undergraduate-Enrollment Picture Worsens; most Republicans think the election wasn't fair; Investigating Trump after all this

✅The Biden Presidency and International Education 

     It's been a hard four years for supporters of international education. Experts expect a reset in international education policies under Biden, but caution that damage to the once-welcoming image of the United States can't be easily erased. 

—Inside Higher Ed 

✅Enrollment Still Down 

Undergraduate enrollment is still down across higher education, according to the latest National Student Clearinghouse report. Black and Hispanic enrollment in community colleges is still down more than white and Asian enrollment. 

—Inside Higher Ed 

✅Undergraduate-Enrollment Picture Worsens as Pandemic Drags On 

—CHE 

✅Biden Draws on Colleges to Aid in Transition 

—Inside Higher Ed 

     President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team is drawing significantly the nation’s colleges and universities to prepare to take the reins of government on Jan. 20. 

     Of the nearly 600 mostly volunteers announced by Biden’s transition team to serve on agency review teams to help coordinate the transition from the Trump administration, nearly 80 are professors…. 

✅The Pandemic May Have Changed International Recruiting Forever 

New tactics started as emergency measures, but could be a lasting way to keep enrollments up. 

—CHE 

✅Cheating-detection companies made millions during the pandemic. Now students are fighting back. 

Some described intense stress as remote proctors watched them take tests, worrying they would be labeled as cheats. Others said they had urinated at their desks for fear that leaving for the bathroom would hurt their chances of a post-graduation career. 

—WashPo  

✅The Right Way to Investigate Trump Once He Leaves Office 

The Department of Justice can appoint a special counsel. It will help keep politics out of holding Trump accountable. 

—Politico 

     On January 20, 2021, Donald Trump will no longer be the President of the United States. Later that year, he may become the first former president to face a criminal indictment. Trump is reportedly worried about being arrested, and he should be. 

✅‘A grand scheme’: Trump’s election defiance consumes GOP 

Many party officials are suggesting to the rank and file that the election was stolen or that the outcome stands to be reversed. 

—Politico

     …A majority of Republicans, according to new polling, are convinced the election wasn’t fair. Party officials are attacking one another for failing a litmus test of defending Trump’s interests. Lawmakers in Congress and states across the country are rushing to the cause…. 

✅California joins most of U.S. in ‘uncontrolled’ coronavirus spread -- The rampant spread of the coronavirus across the U.S. has now engulfed California — which until recently had stood apart from the majority of states by keeping transmission in check. Annie Vainshtein in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 11/12/20 

✅Skelton: Expanding vote by mail in California was a success. Let’s do it permanently -- The pandemic produced one good thing: mail ballots for every California voter. And regardless of our fired president’s nonsensical claims, they were cast without a scent of fraud. George Skelton in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/12/20 

✅Donald Trump Is Purging the Defense Department to Elevate His Most Fervent Supporters 

The lame duck president is getting his revenge on the national security state. 

—Mother Jones 

     …Policy chief James Anderson, intelligence head Joseph Kernan, and Esper’s chief of staff Jen Stewart are all gone, replaced by true believers with a history of echoing Trump’s most conspiratorial views on Russian election interference and the Deep State. The sudden nature of the departures was reflected in a terse Pentagon statement, which said Kernan’s exit had been “planned for several months,” but said nothing of Anderson or Stewart’s reasons for resigning….

✅Biden’s Policy Agenda Rests Heavily on Senate Outcome -- President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s transition team is preparing multiple sets of policy proposals for the economy, health care, climate change and other domestic issues, including the ambitious agenda Mr. Biden laid out in his winning campaign, while acknowledging it may have to be pared back in recognition of divided government. Jim Tankersley in the New York Times$ -- 11/12/20 

✅A winter surge in COVID-19 cases seems inevitable. Can we stop it? -- Temperatures are dropping, nights are growing longer, the holidays are nearing, and the science is clear: The pandemic is far from over. A long, dark winter awaits. Deborah Netburn in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/11/20

11-11: Colleges Have Shed a Tenth of Their Employees Since the Pandemic Began; Trump's legal fights: "all noise"

✅Walters: Orange County’s stubborn conservative streak -- Ronald Reagan chose Mile Square Park, in the heart of Orange County, for a Labor Day rally in 1984 to kick off his final push for a second term as president. Dan Walters CalMatters -- 11/11/20 

     With Donald Trump seeking another term, this year’s election appeared to be another opportunity for Democrats to expand their Orange County presence, and in a sense they did. Orange County again voted Democratic for president and two Republican state senators, John Moorlach and Ling Ling Chang, were ousted by Democratic challengers. 

     However, two Democrats who had won previously Republican congressional seats in 2016, Gil Cisneros and Harley Rouda, lost them after serving just one term. And in other ways, this year’s election indicated that Orange County is still, relative to other coastal counties, fairly conservative. 

     Joe Biden walloped Trump by a nearly 2-to-1 landslide in California, but in Orange County, based on the unofficial returns, Biden’s margin was much narrower, just 10 percentage points…. 

     Clearly, Orange County is no longer the impregnable Republican fortress it was in 1984, but neither is it as blue as Democrats have hoped. One could say that it’s purple with a stubborn streak of conservatism that sets it apart from the rest of coastal California. 

✅Colleges Have Shed a Tenth of Their Employees Since the Pandemic Began 

—CHE 

✅Pandemic Hits Higher Ed Employment Hard 

—Inside Higher Ed 

     Nearly every state lost higher education jobs during the pandemic, according to a report from the Pew Charitable Trusts published Tuesday. The education sector is among the hardest hit by the pandemic. 

✅Biden’s Victory Has Elated International Students. But the Road to Lasting Reform Is Long. 

—CHE

✅UCLA, UC Irvine nurses rally over COVID exposure, staff shortages -- Registered nurses employed by UCLA rallied Tuesday to demand that medical workers be informed when they’ve been exposed to COVID-19 and be properly tested — the way UCLA athletes are tested. At the same time, nurses working at UC Irvine Medical Center in Orange held a rally to alert the public to what they consider insufficient staffing at the facility. The item is in the Orange County Register -- 11/11/20 

✅In liberal California, election shows Prop. 13 tax revolt is alive and well -- With the failure of Proposition 15, the $140 million campaign to hike property taxes on businesses across the state finally comes to a close. Now begins a new statewide competition to explain what the results really mean. Ben Christopher CalMatters -- 11/11/20 

✅First openly gay justice confirmed to serve on the California Supreme Court -- Martin Jenkins, appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, won unanimous confirmation Tuesday to the California Supreme Court, becoming its first openly gay member and the fifth Black justice in the court’s history. Maura Dolan in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/11/20 

Schiele and his wife died in the
flu pandemic, 1918. He was 28.

✅Biden, planning his administration, says GOP leaders ignoring his win are ‘intimidated’ by Trump -- President-elect Joe Biden said Tuesday he is hoping to name several Cabinet-level nominees before Thanksgiving and downplayed the difficulties that his team is having amid a lack of cooperation by President Trump in the transfer of power. Annie Linskey in the Washington Post$ -- 11/11/20 

✅Fighting Election Results, Trump Employs a New Weapon: The Government -- President Trump, facing the prospect of leaving the White House in defeat in just 70 days, is harnessing the power of the federal government to resist the results of an election that he lost, something that no sitting president has done in American history. Peter Baker and Lara Jakes in the New York Times$ -- 11/11/20 

✅‘It’s all noise’: The reality behind Trump’s legal fight -- The court fight over election results, which has yielded few results, is as much about pleasing the base as it is about making coherent legal arguments. Anita Kumar Politico -- 11/11/20 

✅In liberal California, Black Lives Matter protests in some towns meet with ‘scary’ backlash -- Pastor Nelson Rabell-González knew that “livable, lovable Lodi,” as locals call it, had a problem when men carrying a noose and baseball bats with American flags attached shouted racial slurs at him in September as he helped lead a peaceful protest in this San Joaquin Valley town. Anita Chabria in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/10/20

OC Covid numbers: heading up

11-10: Community colleges find an advocate in future First Lady Jill Biden

✅Is a Second Coronavirus Wave Hitting Orange County? 

—Voice of OC 

     A second wave of coronavirus infections could be hitting Orange County after a series of upticks over the past week, with over 500 new cases reported Sunday. 

     The county hasn’t seen over 400 new cases reported since early August, when OC was coming out of the summer case spikes. Monday saw an additional 308 cases reported…. 

     Last week, OC’s new daily case counts crept above 300 a day before hitting 512 on Sunday…. 

     By Sunday, there were 201 people hospitalized, including 72 people in intensive care units. That’s the highest hospitalizations have been since mid September…. 

     Since the pandemic began in March, the virus has killed 1,509 people, out of 62,563 confirmed OC cases, according to the county Health Care Agency…. 

✅Against Face-to-Face Teaching Mandates 

Professors and graduate students urge caution on spring plans for in-person instruction. 

—Inside Higher Ed 

✅'They Are Americans Now’ 

Biden's victory gives a reprieve for DACA recipients, but advocates for Dreamers say congressional action is what's really needed. 

—Inside Higher Ed 

✅Why Some Stanford Professors Want the Hoover Institution Gone 

Controversial pandemic pronouncements test an uneasy relationship. 

—CHE 

✅Household gatherings, Halloween are driving California coronavirus rates higher, Gov. Gavin Newsom says -- As California’s COVID-19 numbers continue to climb, state officials say they’ve identified a common source of spread: Private household gatherings. Andrew Sheeler in the Sacramento Bee$ Don Thompson Associated Press Amy Graff in the San Francisco Chronicle -- 11/10/20 

✅Affordable Care Act challenge before Supreme Court could strip insurance from millions -- As the Supreme Court hears a challenge Tuesday to the Affordable Care Act, the stakes are enormous: insurance coverage for more than 20 million Americans during a disastrous pandemic. Medicaid coverage for more than 15 million with low incomes. About $27 billion a year in federal funding for California. Bob Egelko in the San Francisco Chronicle$ Angela Hart California Healthline via in the Orange County Register -- 11/10/20 

✅Community colleges find an advocate in future First Lady Jill Biden -- For the first time in American history, the nation’s First Lady will hold a job outside the White House, and that job will involve teaching. Jill Biden will continue teaching English at Northern Virginia Community College, where even as Second Lady, she has advocated for students and education after high school. Ashley A. Smith EdSource -- 11/10/20 

✅White House, escalating tensions, orders agencies to rebuff Biden transition team -- The Trump White House on Monday instructed senior government leaders to block cooperation with President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team, escalating a standoff that threatens to impede the transfer of power and prompting the Biden team to consider legal action. Lisa Rein, Matt Viser, Greg Miller and Josh Dawsey in the Washington Post$ -- 11/10/20 

✅Trump’s quest to end the Affordable Care Act arrives at Supreme Court -- The latest legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act comes Tuesday before a reconstituted Supreme Court, during a pandemic, in a rapidly changing political environment. All of those factors are likely to play a role when Republican-led states and the Trump administration ask the justices to find a key provision unconstitutional. Robert Barnes in the Washington Post$ -- 11/10/20 

✅Biden Moves to Confront a Pandemic Racing Out of Control -- President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. moved on Monday to begin assuming responsibility for the surging coronavirus pandemic, naming a string of high-profile scientists — including a former surgeon general and a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner — to advise him on the pandemic and imploring Americans to wear masks. Sheryl Gay Stolberg in the New York Times$ -- 11/10/20

Covidity (US & OC Spiketry)

Um....No

Today's OC Covid numbers

Here's daily Covid in USA, compared to France (Johns Hopkins)

Two other nations (Johns Hopkins)

11-9: The educated, liberal, & female strongly agree: "The humanities should be an important part of every American’s education"; BIDEN: “Please, I implore you, wear a mask.”

✅Survey on American Attitudes on the Humanities 

—Inside Higher Ed 

    Just over half (56 percent) of Americans agree strongly with the statement that “the humanities should be an important part of every American’s education,” while 38 percent “somewhat agreed” with the statement, according to a new survey of 5,015 American adults from the Humanities Indicators Project of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. 

     The survey found differences in attitudes across educational levels, political ideologies and gender. While 68 percent of college graduates strongly agree that the humanities should be an important part of every American’s education, just 47 percent of people without a college degree do. Liberals (70 percent) are more likely than conservatives (48 percent) to strongly agree the humanities are important. Women (60 percent) are also more likely than men (52 percent) to see the humanities as being an important part of every American’s education….  

✅Biden's Victory Could Be Transformative 

President-elect has vowed to spend much more. The vice president-elect is an HBCU graduate and supporter. The next first lady is a community college instructor. 

—Inside Higher Ed 

✅Expert Analysis: Youth Voter Turnout Increased 

—Inside Higher Ed 

     Researchers estimate that youth voter turnout increased by at least five percentage points from the 2016 to 2020 presidential elections. 

     An estimated 49 to 51 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds voted in the 2020 elections, and that figure could rise to between 53 and 56 percent as further votes are counted, according to an analysis from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University.

✅Biden implores Americans to wear masks amid vaccine progress -- Will Weissert, Philip Marcelo and Aamer Madhani Associated Press Alice Miranda Ollstein and Quint Forgey Politico -- 11/9/20

     “We could save tens of thousands of lives if everyone would just wear a mask for the next few months. Not Democratic or Republican lives, American lives,” Biden said. “Please, I implore you, wear a mask.”

✅Coronavirus surge in L.A. County coincides with more large gatherings -- As throngs of political partiers and protesters took to the streets over the weekend, California public health officials again raised red flags, warning that crowded gatherings threaten to exacerbate the spread of the coronavirus at a precarious point in the pandemic. Luke Money in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/9/20 

✅Affirmative action failed on California’s ballot — but colleges commit to diversity goals -- After California voters rejected a measure to repeal the state’s ban on affirmative action last week, higher education leaders reiterated a commitment to diversify their student population by providing outreach and support to Latino and under-represented students. Kim Bojórquez in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 11/9/20

✅Californians eye Biden jobs after years of Trump attacks -- California is about to come in from the cold. After almost four years of President Donald Trump's taunts as a state that's "going to hell,'' California is poised to be powerhouse with a Biden administration. Carla Marinucci Politico -- 11/9/20 

✅University of California expands list of courses that meet math requirement for admission -- High school students planning to apply to the University of California now have a broader set of courses they can take to meet the math requirement for admission to the public university system. Sydney Johnson EdSource -- 11/9/20 

✅At least three people at a White House election party last week have tested positive, including Ben Carson.

—NYT