The United States Postal Service announced Sunday it would stop removing postal collection boxes through late November following complaints about how some had been taken away, meaning there will be no change in the boxes' locations until after Election Day.

This summer’s uprising has forced a reckoning within the United States about the deep imprint of racism on our society. The public lynching of George Floyd pierced the veil of segregation that typically shrouds the realities in which millions of African-Americans live—straining under the mounting weight of Black death. Tens of thousands of African-Americans killed by the rapid spread of COVID-19, the taped execution of Ahmaud Arbery by two white men in Georgia, the reports of Breonna Taylor’s brutal killing by Louisville police, and then Floyd’s horrifying murder in Minneapolis brought home for a broader public the police state that exists in Black America. By June, the persistence and duration of the protests had produced historic changes in white people’s perceptions. A national poll recorded an unprecedented shift in opinion: seventy-one per cent of whites said that they think racism and discrimination are a “big problem” in the United States, and fifty-five per cent said that the anger of the protests was fully justified. In a different poll, sixty per cent expressed support for the Black Lives Matter movement. This sea change in opinion was mirrored by a wave of public gestures of racial reconciliation, as a host of corporate executives acknowledged—if not accepted genuine responsibility for—their roles in sustaining regimes of racial inequality. Nascar renounced the flying of the Confederate flag at its events. Juneteenth, long an informal day of celebrations among some African-Americans, was suddenly institutionalized as a paid holiday. Former President George W. Bush condemned “systemic racism.” At one level, the rapid, reflexive default to offering symbolic recognition of racism was quite typical. No other country engages in the cavernous nothingness of the fake apology as frequently as the United States. In the case of Black Americans, it is most recognizable in the form of big-sounding civil-rights legislation that is eventually, as the historian Leon Litwack has written, “compromised, deferred and undone.” It is clearly a craven gesture when multibillion-dollar corporations claim that “Black lives matter,” even as they refuse their Black workers hazard pay, paid time off, or a living wage. Nevertheless, these élite searches for absolution from the sin of “systemic racism” have reaffirmed that racism is not only about burning crosses and the N-word: it is also present in the housing market, in institutions of higher education, in the job market, and most certainly in policing and the criminal-justice system. In this moment, when both the coronavirus pandemic and the uprising are laying bare structural flaws in U.S. society, there has been a renewed discussion of structural remedies. This is why “defund the police”—a demand that only a marginal handful dared to put forward just months ago—has become a central slogan of the reëmergent B.L.M. movement.

A spokesperson for Facebook said they hadn’t seen the Tech Transparency Project report yet, so was unable to comment on specific findings, or able to say whether the groups included in the report these groups would fall under the “dangerous organization designation” applied to what the social media company describes as a core, violent Boogaloo network.

A battle within the Democratic Party is looming on health care if presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden wins and the Senate flips.

House Democrats included $25 billion for the USPS in their coronavirus bill in May, along with an additional $3.6 billion in election security funding. The White House and Democratic leaders tentatively agreed to as much as $10 billion for the Postal Service in their negotiations, but that was contingent on the rest of the agreement being nailed down, which wasn't anywhere near happening.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds pushed back Friday against criticism that she has been slow to respond to a wind storm that devastated the state, and promised more help soon for tens of thousands of residents struggling through their fifth day without electricity. Reynolds said 100 members of the Iowa National Guard arrived in hard-hit Cedar Rapids on Friday to help clear tree debris that is blocking many downed power lines. She said she has commitments from the state's largest utilities that customers in Cedar Rapids and other areas should have their power restored by Tuesday, if not sooner. Many others, including those in the Des Moines area, should be back online this weekend, she said. Reynolds, a Republican, said she would submit the state's request for a federal disaster declaration Monday after completing mandatory damage assessments. She said President Trump has promised to act swiftly to provide federal resources once that's approved. The storm known as a derecho swept through Iowa on Monday with winds of more than 100 mph, downing trees and power lines, destroying a third or more of the state's corn fields, and damaging homes and businesses. At least three people in Iowa and one in Indiana were killed.

The Reno office of the National Weather Service warned Northern California of a fiery tornado Saturday afternoon that had sprung up near a large, fast-moving wildfire in the Sierra. That’s right: A firenado. It is the first known issuance of a tornado warning for the climate phenomenon since it burst into California’s consciousness during the deadly Carr Fire in 2018.

The hum of air conditioners returned after hundreds of thousands of Californians lost power in blackouts on Friday, but many wonder if the outages could return as temperatures soar into triple digits again. California ISO, which monitors the state’s electricity needs and power grid capabilities, issued a Stage 3 System Emergency on Friday because there was an electricity reserve deficiency. At the peak usage time, around 7 p.m., the data showed demand was at 46,777 megawatts. The forecasted peak for Friday was 46,824 megawatts. And the forecasted peak for Saturday is not much less than that, at 46,389 megawatts. Then look ahead to Sunday, when the current forecast puts the peak at 46,396 megawatts.

Boaters are being warned to stay away from the Oakland Estuary on Saturday, after an estimated 50,000 gallons of raw sewage spilled during a power outage Friday night at the East Bay Municipal Utility District wastewater treatment plant in West Oakland. Signs were posted along the estuary on Saturday morning about the spill and EBMUD was reaching out to rowing clubs and others who frequently use the strait between Oakland and Alameda. The spill occurred after power outages between 5 and 7 p.m., ordered by the California Independent System Operator, caused a pump to fail, EBMUD said Saturday.

Aguas Zarcas, a space rock that crashed last year in a Costa Rican rainforest, has captivated researchers and collectors

The far-right fringe group infamous for promoting nutjob conspiracy theories about pedophile rings has moved on to criminally meddling in child custody cases.

Lol

In July 2017, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos held a summit on Title IX, the 1972 federal statute that bans discrimination on the basis of sex at universities. Inside the Department of Education building, she met with the National Coalition for Men Carolinas (NCFMC), Families Advocating for Campus Equality (FACE), and Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE), three organizations that claim there is a crisis of false rape allegations against male college students. Outside, despite the sweltering heat in Washington, D.C., more than a 100 people rallied, hoping to prevent the department from rolling back protections for students who are victims of rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment. “Dear Betsy,” one sign read. “Help end rape culture, don’t perpetuate it.” Nearly 3,000 pages of e-mails obtained by the anti-corruption organization Democracy Forward through a Freedom of Information Act request and shared with The Nation reveal that the July 2017 meeting was part of a much deeper collaboration between the DOE and these men’s rights groups. From May to September 2017, the DOE’s Office of Civil Rights partnered with NCFMC, FACE, and SAVE to develop regulations on campus sexual assault. E-mails make clear that staffers from these organizations participated in conference calls, offered legal advice, and met with high-level employees at the Department of Education. The DOE even hired the main funder of SAVE to help draft new regulations and teamed up with FACE to try to produce supportive op-eds. The views of these groups have never been hidden. In public and in e-mails with DOE employees, members of these organizations have demeaned the credibility of young women, ridiculed sexual assault survivors, and pushed junk science on campus rape. In September 2017, DeVos announced that she would rescind Obama-era guidance on how educational institutions should handle sexual assault. A year later, the DOE published its new proposed regulations; this week, two federal courts declined to stop them from being implemented, following one lawsuit from 17 states and the District of Columbia and another by New York school boards; and so today they go into effect.

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) on Friday suggested that officials create a presidential crimes commission after President Trump leaves office to investigate his actions while serving as commander in chief.

If the United States allowed coronavirus infections to run rampant to achieve possible herd immunity, the death toll would be massive, especially among vulnerable people, the nation's top infectious doctor said.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren demanded that the Postal Service's internal watchdog probe "corruption" related to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy buying Amazon stock options.

The Guardian joined the Labour Party’s center-right wing in seeking to to undermine Jeremy Corbyn.

Southern Brooklyn Assemblyman William Colton shared a post on his public Facebook page calling Black Lives Matter a "hate group" and equating it to the Klu Klux Klan — which, he said, started out as a group of “well intentioned people” before becoming the notoriously violent white supremacist institution that it is today.

The internal watchdog at the United States Postal Service is reviewing controversial policy changes recently imposed under Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, and is also examining DeJoy's compliance with federal ethics rules, according to a spokeswoman for the USPS inspector general and an aide to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who requested the review. Lawmakers from both parties and postal union leaders have sounded alarms over disruptive changes instituted by DeJoy this summer, including eliminating overtime and slowing some mail delivery. Democrats claim he is intentionally undermining postal service operations to sabotage mail-in voting in the November election -- a charge he denies. Agapi Doulaveris, a spokeswoman for the USPS watchdog, told CNN in an email, "We have initiated a body of work to address the concerns raised, but cannot comment on the details." Last week, Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, and eight other Democratic lawmakers asked the inspector general to launch an inquiry into DeJoy on a number of fronts, including the nationwide policy changes he's made since taking over in June, as well as whether DeJoy has "met all ethics requirements."

While President Donald Trump forthrightly acknowledged only yesterday that weakening the Post Office will help him obstruct mail balloting this fall, postal workers in the key swing state of Michigan say his mission has been clear for weeks. “It’s a fundamental effort to undermine people’s confidence in this agency and make it harder to vote by mail…There’s no other explanation.” Delayed mail, a consequence of battles over funding for the United States Postal Service and of the agency’s staffing shortages, affects many aspects of American life—the delivery of millions of prescriptions, paychecks, bills. But recent funding cuts, overtime reductions, and other changes imposed by Louis DeJoy, the man Trump recently appointed as head of the postal service, have left postal workers warning about new multi-day delays—and that a deliberate effort to slow down the mail and interfere with the election is underway. “I think it’s absolutely true,” said Steve Wood, a mail clerk who works at the Michigan Metroplex, a massive mail sorting center near Detroit. He says he was convinced in recent weeks as he and his colleagues saw the removal of almost a quarter of the facility’s mail sorting machines, a lack of substitute employees to replace workers missing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and a general lack of urgency to locate and send along ballots that have piled up in bins.