Stranger Than Fiction

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• As Cases Surge, Data Suggest Job-Market Recovery Is Cooling “Applications for unemployment benefits have plateaued at high levels after easing for months, suggesting layoffs remain elevated and the labor market’s recovery is cooling amid an uptick in coronavirus cases.”

• Senate Republicans Prepare to Unveil Coronavirus Relief Package “Senate Republicans prepared to roll out their opening offer for a fifth coronavirus relief package after ironing out differences with the White House, setting up negotiations with Democrats just days before the expiration of enhanced unemployment benefits.”

• Portland mayor tear-gassed alongside protesters by federal officers “As Mayor Ted Wheeler spoke, the constant thrum of the crowd was punctured with chants of “Quit your job!””

• Senate poised to defy Trump’s veto with order to change Confederate base names “The chamber finished debate on amendments without trying to strip the mandate from the bill, despite the White House threat to veto a parallel House bill over similar language.”

• The pandemic will change the way millions cast ballots. Here’s the state of absentee voting in the U.S.

• Covid-19 Measures Have All but Wiped Out the Flu in the Southern Hemisphere

WHAT I’M READING + WATCHING + LISTENING TO

• 🎧 LISTEN: Radio Rental

• In Defense of Our Teachers

• Want to Know Where Covid-19 May Hit Next? Watch the Apple Store Closures

• It’s Time to Re-Re-Re-Meet the Muppets

• China Blasts Off on Its Long March to Look for Life on Mars

THE COMMENT

“We face a racial crisis that threatens African American bodies and a pandemic that has taken nearly 150,000 lives. A responsible government would address these problems. The Trump administration is not just distracting us from them by creating lawless mayhem but building a different idea of the task of government – from policy to memory. It is displacing the idea of democratic responsibility with that of the politics of eternity. A politician of eternity seeks to shift the work of government away from the actual problems of actual people and towards the enforcement of national myth.” - Timothy Snyder

THE STRANGEST

• Hostage siege ends after Ukrainian president endorses Joaquin Phoenix film

THE AV ROOM