Food insecurity is ‘growing at an alarming rate’ among children, lawmakers warn
Back to … what? The reopening of schools With every state experiencing a different COVID infection rate, schools across the country are reopening with a mix of in-person and virtual instruction — and the insecurities, disagreements and fears about protecting children remain. David Pogue explores the difficult choices parents and teachers face about sending students back to class in the midst of a pandemic. PR Newswire Twelfth Annual Food From The Bar Los Angeles Campaign Raises A Record Of More Than Half A Million Dollars For Hungry Children Twelfth Annual Food From The Bar Los Angeles Campaign Raises A Record Of More Than Half A Million Dollars For Hungry ChildrenPR NewswireLOS ANGELES, Aug. 24, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — The Los Angeles legal community raised more than $600,000 for the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank during this year’s Food From The Bar Campaign. Yahoo Sports The UFC is the only sports entity that has remained consistent or grown with its pre-pandemic television ratings. USA TODAY Moving in itself is stressful, but it’s even harder during the pandemic. KTRK – Houston It’s the second rental relief program during the pandemic, and those with the greatest need will be prioritized. The Wall Street Journal Public health is as much about engineering as it is medicine. The Independent As children in England return to school next week, there has been increased discussion about the threat of Covid-19 to children, and how the virus affects young people compared to adults. Business Wire The “Functional Foods and Drinks – Global Market Trajectory & Analytics” report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com’s offering. Reuters Vietnam zoo turns to donations, growing food to survive pandemic As visitor numbers slump during the pandemic, Vietnam’s oldest zoo has scrambled to survive, such as holding fundraising drives, cutting pay and growing fruit and vegetables to feed the animals. The more than 150-year-old zoo in Vietnam’s commercial hub of Ho Chi Minh City saw visitor numbers dwindle by March as the coronavirus outbreak unfolded. “Since we don’t know when the pandemic will finally end, we are trying to diversify our revenue streams,” said Pham Van Tan, head of the Saigon Zoo and Botanical Gardens, noting how ticket sales normally make up most of the $5 million annual revenue. USA TODAY The $400 in extra unemployment aid for millions of out-of-work Americans is actually $300 in most states. And it won’t arrive for weeks, experts warn. The Independent Next week children will return to school in England for the first time in months due to the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdown. Woman’s Day The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is impacting people’s relationships, for better and for worse.From Woman’s Day Associated Press UK leader urges parents to let their kids go back to school Britain’s prime minister is asking parents to set aside their fears and send their children back to school next month when schools in Britain fully reopen for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic shut then down more than five months ago. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it was the government’s “moral duty” to reopen the schools as he stressed that authorities now know more about COVID-19 than they did when the country went into lockdown on March 23. Johnson’s comments came hours after Britain’s top public health officials issued a joint statement saying that children were more likely be harmed by staying away from school than from being exposed to COVID-19. The Independent Coronavirus: Wetherspoon warns of annual loss due to pandemic Pub group JD Wetherspoon has warned its business will be pushed into an annual loss due to the coronavirus pandemic, and predicted that the boost provided by the government’s Eat Out To Help Out scheme will dwindle when it ends on 31 August.The company, founded by Tim Martin, said sales had risen in the past month thanks to extra outdoor seating and the subsidised meal scheme, but were still significantly lower compared to the same period last year. CBS News Videos Texas governor warns residents about 2 incoming storms after declaring state of disaster in 23 counties Texas Governor Greg Abbott said Sunday that states of disaster have been declared in 23 counties as two storms — Hurricane Marco and Tropical Storm Laura — approach the state. The storm threat comes as the Lone Star State continues to respond to the coronavirus pandemic. Watch his press conference here. The Daily Beast Trump Admin Puts COVID-Wracked Meat Processor on Food Safety Panel The Brazilian meat conglomerate that presided over an alleged “work while sick” culture at a plant in Colorado and deadly COVID-19 cluster at a facility in Nebraska during the early months of the pandemic will now be advising the federal government on health policies.The U.S. Department of Agriculture, an arm of President Donald Trump’s administration, announced last week that it had appointed Sherri Williams, a health overseer at JBS, to its National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection. This panel provides recommendations directly to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue on oversight matters.“Their expertise and advice play a key role in informing USDA’s food safety decisions to ensure the U.S continues to have one of the safest food systems in the world,” Undersecretary for Food Safety Dr. Mindy Brashears said in a release accompanying the announcement. The appointment comes just months after JBS had to temporarily idle meat mills in Colorado, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania because of outbreaks of the novel coronavirus among their workers. The company also suffered severe rashes of the disease in its facilities in Utah and Texas, and its uniquely troubled history made the appointment a remarkable one during a still-raging pandemic.At JBS’ Greeley, Colorado, plant in particular, local health officials reported discovering a “work while sick culture” that kept employees working the line even after they began to feel unwell. More than 300 of the plant’s workers tested positive for COVID-19 and at least eight meat handlers succumbed to the ailment. The outbreak was so severe it even grabbed the attention of the White House, which promised to deploy special assistance to the location—although the union representing workers there reported that aid has still not arrived.JBS maintained at the time that it obligated the ill to remain home and had instituted testing and safety protocols to protect its labor force.While JBS is hardly the only meat processor to witness horrific outbreaks amid the global pandemic, it has an unusually lurid history with hygiene and government oversight. Headquartered in São Paulo, JBS was one of more than two dozen companies caught up in a 2017 sting in the South American nation. Authorities in “Operation Weak Flesh” asserted they had caught the processors bribing inspectors, selling expired meat to schools and consumers, and treating their product with illegal fillers and carcinogenic chemicals.JBS denied at the time it had committed any quality violations. However, the company’s executives and biggest shareholders, Joesley and Wesley Batista—whose family founded JBS—were simultaneously ensnared in an even larger corruption scandal, Operation Car Wash. The pair confessed to bribing nearly 2,000 Brazilian politicians.The news of Williams’ appointment to the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection provoked outrage from Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI), one of the company’s most vocal critics.“The appointment of a JBS official to the USDA’s National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection is a slap in the face to farmers and ranchers across America,” Pocan said. “This corporation has no businesses dictating the safety of meat and poultry across America, this is Donald Trump’s corporate cronyism personified.” The USDA did not reply to a request for comment. But in a statement to The Daily Beast, JBS defended its own record and Williams.“As anyone who knows her will tell you, Ms. Williams is an accomplished expert and a credit to her family, the food safety profession and American agriculture,” said spokeswoman Nikki Richardson, who noted that the company’s American division had not been implicated in the Brazilian scandal. “JBS USA has not been accused of any wrongdoing regarding the events in Brazil in 2017.”JBS had previously come under attack from politicians in both parties after the firm received $67 million in federal assistance intended to bolster farmers struggling amid the president’s trade war with China.The firm was the only meat processor named to the committee last week. Most of the rest of the appointees hailed from universities, consumer groups, and trade organizations—with the only other private companies added to the roster being distributor U.S. Foods and Pride of the Pond, a small seafood company from Mississippi. The sole meat processor already on the panel was Pilgrim’s Pride, of which JBS is a majority shareholder. JBS is thus also set to be the only entity to control two of the committee’s seats.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more. WPVI – Philadelphia Distancing and disinfecting are both key elements when it comes to reopening plans for schools. The Independent Brexit: Navy may need to intervene in clashes between UK and European fishing vessels, leaked plans warn The Navy may be needed to prevent British fishermen clashing with European boats if a second coronavirus crisis coincides with a no-deal Brexit, according to a leaked government document.The RAF could also be required to drop food on the Channel Islands, according to a Cabinet Office “reasonable worst-case scenario” paper seen by The Sun newspaper. Business Wire The “Mobile Food Services – Global Market Trajectory & Analytics” report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com’s offering. TechCrunch COVID-19 pandemic accelerated shift to e-commerce by 5 years, new report says As the COVID-19 pandemic reshapes our world, more consumers have begun shopping online in greater numbers and frequency. According to new data from IBM’s U.S. Retail Index, the pandemic has accelerated the shift away from physical stores to digital shopping by roughly five years. Department stores, as a result, are seeing significant declines. HuffPost Four years after vowing to solve the nation’s problems, Donald Trump faces reelection with a far deadlier one. Salon Despite partisan affiliation, American voters tend to share views on common facts about the world The Independent Parents could be fined for not sending children back to school as ‘last resort’, says minister Parents could be fined as a “last resort” if they refuse to send their children back to school, an education minister has warned.Nick Gibb said teachers should try to “reassure” parents of the need to send their children back to school but said there was a “moral imperative” to do so. WABC – NY A beach party may be the cause of a COVID-19 outbreak among a number of high school students in New Jersey. The Daily Beast Your Dog Has Pandemic Anxiety, Too Feeling isolated, anxious, or depressed since the pandemic hit? Struggling to cope with uncertainty? Homebound with your entire family and going berserk from too much chaos and no privacy? If you’ve felt any of these things in the past six months, experts say you might be a dog. Indeed, dogs are feeling the emotional impacts of coronavirus just like their owners are, and it may be changing the way they act.Welcome to Rabbit Hole, where we dive deep on the biggest story. It’s for Beast Inside members only. Join up today.For example, research published in The Journal of Pediatrics in June found that more children were visiting the ER as a result of dog bites since stay-at-home orders went into effect in March. The data out of Children’s Hospital Colorado showed that the rate of hospitalizations for dog bites shot upward when lockdowns went into effect and remained abnormally high even as these orders began to relax over time.Cinnamon Dixon, associate professor of pediatrics at University of Colorado and an attending pediatrician at Children’s Hospital Colorado, said that while the researchers didn’t have national data from this period, she doubted the findings would prove unique to Colorado. According to 2019 data shared by the United States Postal Service during their annual “Dog Bite Awareness Week” in June, the state doesn’t usually rank among even the top ten “dog bite states.”People, Do Not Take Your Dog’s Coronavirus Vaccine“The rate of dog bites increases in the summer, and increased dog bites happen when children have increased exposure to dogs,” Dixon, whose research focus is animal-human interaction and, specifically, dog bite prevention, told The Daily Beast. But she said it is notable—and in fact, “startling,”—that the measured increase was nearly three-fold, jumping from 4.7 for every 1,000 visits last April to 12 per 1,000 this year at the same time.“It’s multifactorial,” Dixon said, but she believes some of those factors involve dogs’ heightened stress right now—and central to that, the emotional link between dogs and their owners. The Secret Life of PetsDr. Stephanie Borns-Weil, an animal behaviorist and veterinarian at Tufts University, said that to understand dogs’ behavioral changes, one must first understand that, like humans, they have lots of feelings.“New research shows dogs and cats do have a rich emotional life,” Borns-Weil told the Daily Beast. “They feel fear. They can be impulsive and reactive. They can be angry,” she said. “There’s still a lot of disagreement about whether they feel so-called secondary emotions like jealousy, but the primacy emotions like anxiety, certainly.” And as humans know, nearly half a year into a pandemic, it is a very anxious time.Last year, a new study found that emotions could be transferable between dogs and their owners, and that this phenomenon of positive or negative “emotional contagion” grows more intense the longer a relationship lasts. Other recent research found that humans and their dogs tend to sync their long-term stress levels, as determined by measuring the cortisol concentrations in the hair of study participants from a cohort of human-and-canine pairs. Beyond what we consider human emotions, dogs experience their own versions of mental illness, too, from OCD to PTSD. There are, of course, even pet psychiatrists to treat them, and while this niche industry has been slow on the telehealth uptake, some practitioners are providing visits outside the home to accommodate social distancing. Dog Tired“When you think about what it’s like to be a dog, they don’t really know what’s expected of them in the human world,” Borns-Weil said. “They get a routine, and their ability to function in the human world depends on knowing what that routine is. It’s quite a huge change for dogs—and for cats—having their schedules disrupted.” This stress can manifest in more subtle ways than a pediatric medical emergency: Borns-Weil is seeing “a whole range of behavioral issues” among the canine patients at her veterinary practice, from increased territorial barking to doggy depression.“There are some dogs and cats that really need downtime,” she said. “Nobody’s really thinking about whether the dog—who’s used to just having this time to themselves for resting—is really in the mood to play with the ball, or go for a five-mile walk, or get petted, much less get jumped on by toddlers who are usually at daycare.”She added that most dogs are not used to being “on call” 24/7, and this could lead to their becoming anxious, irritable, even depressed. On the flipside of the coin, she said there are just as many humans now struggling with their pets thinking their owners are ready to play all the time. “So,” she said, “what we get is a situation where both ends of the spectrum, the animals or the people are suffering from a lack of boundaries.” Borns-Weil said that much of how dogs feel is expressed in their behavior. They are social animals, she said, so if humans pay attention, they’ll see dogs are actually quite good at expressing their emotions. To mitigate the risk of dog bites—or to simply help boost a dog’s mental health and help them cope—she recommends finding ways to make sure a dog has access to periods of quiet and privacy, and a consistent schedule when it comes to quiet time versus walks versus play. Ultimately, she said, as with our human partners, if it doesn’t strain relationships, this trying time may actually help take human-pup relationships to the next level.“We are spending more time around them, we are becoming a lot more dependent on them, but we also have an opportunity to understand their worlds better.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more. The Independent Coronavirus news – live: Teachers and parents criticise threat of fines for children who miss school as scientists claim to have found first patient reinfected with Covid-19 Teaching unions and parents have hit back over the threat of fines if children do not return to the classroom next week, warning it could undermine trust between families and schools at a crucial point in the UK’s recovery from coronavirus.It comes after Boris Johnson urged parents to send their children back to school when they reopen in England, saying that yet more time outside the classroom is a greater health risk than returning – a view echoed by Jennie Harries, the deputy chief medical officer, who said car crashes and flu were greater health dangers than Covid-19. KTRK – Houston These families in the Katy area are undecided about their school plans. Do you feel comfortable sending your kids back to school? PR Newswire More Than $1 Million Raised In Less Than 10 Days By #GlobalAidForLebanon Campaign More Than $1 Million Raised In Less Than 10 Days By GlobalAidForLebanon CampaignPR NewswireWASHINGTON, Aug. 24, 2020DONATIONS FROM ACROSS THE GLOBE BRING RELIEF TO THE PEOPLE OF BEIRUT INCLUDING THE SUPPORT OF THE WEEKND, DJ SNAKE, BELLY, FRENCH MONTANA, ALI GATIE, MASSARI. The Daily Beast Pool Boy: Jerry Falwell Jr. ‘Watched’ Me Have Sex With His Wife The pool attendant Jerry Falwell Jr. claimed tried to extort him after having an affair with his wife revealed Monday that he was involved in a seven-year sexual relationship with the suspended Liberty University president and his spouse.In an explosive Reuters interview, Giancarlo Granda said his relationship with the couple began after they met in March 2012, when he was a 20-year-old employee at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach hotel. The now 29-year-old said that throughout the relationship, which ended in 2018, he would have sex with Falwell’s wife, Becki Tilley Falwell, in front of the evangelical leader. “Becki and I developed an intimate relationship and Jerry enjoyed watching from the corner of the room,” Granda said, noting that the liaisons took place “multiple times per year” at hotels in New York and Miami and at the couple’s home in Virginia.Black Liberty University Staffers Resign Over Jerry Falwell Jr.’s Racist ConductThe bombshell claim comes just one day after Falwell Jr., 58, said in a statement to The Washington Examiner that his wife struck up an “inappropriate personal relationship” with the couple’s “pool boy” who then threatened to come forward. Citing the “emotional toll” of the affair, Falwell claimed that while he and his wife have “tried to distance ourselves from him over time,” the man “became increasingly angry and aggressive.” In the statement, Falwell Jr. insisted he was “not involved” in the affair.“Eventually, he began threatening to publicly reveal this secret relationship with Becki and to deliberately embarrass my wife, family, and Liberty University unless we agreed to pay him substantial monies,” Falwell said in the statement to the Examiner.Falwell, an ardent supporter of President Donald Trump, made the allegation after Liberty University on Friday said it was investigating “rumors and claims” about him. The evangelical leader was put on indefinite leave earlier this month after a photo of him with his pants unzipped surfaced. Falwell has apologized for the photo, which he said was taken at a costume party during a family vacation.In the statement to the Examiner, Falwell Jr. said his wife’s affair with their family friend sent him into a depression—which he described as “like living in a roller coaster.” Years later, he alleged, Granda tried to extort the Falwell family, but the Liberty president rejected the threats. In his own statement to the Examiner, Granda denied ever extorting the family, saying “any allegation of extortion is falsely, defamatory and belied by clear documentary evidence. The Falwell’s attempt to sandbag me, and the Examiner, with a last minute story without providing the Examiner clear evidence that this was not simply an ‘affair’ with concocted allegations of extortion reeks desperation. The WHOLE truth will come out.”Granda, however, does admit to having a consensual relationship with the couple starting in 2012. He said he now feels like they preyed upon him. “Whether it was immaturity, naïveté, instability, or a combination thereof, it was this ‘mindset’ that the Falwells likely detected in deciding that I was the ideal target for their sexual escapades,” said Granda, who also provided emails, text messages, and other evidence to Reuters to prove the affair.In one screenshot of a FaceTime conversation Granda had with the Falwells in 2019, Reuters reported Tilley Falwell was “naked.” In the call, the two reportedly discussed their relationship while Falwell peeped behind a door. Jerry Falwell Jr. Out ‘Indefinitely’ at Liberty University After Unzipped Pants PhotoIn another 2018 audio recording obtained by Reuters, Tilley Falwell complained to the 29-year-old about him describing his relationships with other people. “He’s like telling me every time he hooks up with people. Like I don’t have feelings or something,” Tilley Falwell reportedly said before Falwell chimed in: “You’re going to make her jealous.” “I’m not trying to do that,” Granda replied, according to Reuters. But recent text messages, including one exchange in June, revealed the relationship between Granda and the Falwells had turned sour—in part because of a business dispute. According to BuzzFeed News, the couple bought a Miami Beach youth hostel in 2013 with Granda—and he was “offered a share” because the 29-year-old lived in the area and would act as the manager. Corporate records show Granda still has a stake in Alton Hostel LLC while multiple media outlets reported the deal sparked a legal battle that later involved Michael Cohen. “Since you’re okay with ruining my life, I am going to take the kamikaze route,” Granda wrote to Jerry Falwell in 2019, according to Reuters. “It really is a shame because I wanted to reach a peaceful resolution and just move on with our lives but if conflict is what you want, then so be it.”“You should by now understand that I will not be extorted. I have always treated you fairly and been restrained in response to your threats because I did not wish to ruin your life. Going forward, stop contacting me and my family,” Falwell reportedly replied.In a Friday statement, Liberty University said its “decision whether or not to retain Falwell as president has not yet been made.” Michael Bowe, a lawyer for Jerry Falwell, told Reuters the evangelical leader “categorically denies everything you indicated you intend to publish about him.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more. Miami Herald She’s since been hospitalized, officials say. The Week The Lincoln Project kicks off the RNC by taking aim at ‘evil’ Jared Kushner “Evil is real,” the disaffected Republicans behind the Lincoln Project said in a new ad Monday morning, right as President Trump and the GOP prepare to kick off their Republican National Convention. “We ignore it when it seems educated, polite, superficially charming, even sophisticated. We trivialize it, ignore it, and when we do, it grows.” That isn’t a description of Trump. In this ad, the Lincoln Project is taking aim at Jared Kushner, the president’s son in law, senior adviser, and de facto campaign chairman.Specifically, the ad is about the national COVID-19 plan that Kushner helped come up with then, reportedly, scrapped when it appeared the virus would only affect states run by Democratic governors. “It was deliberate, cold, political, premeditated,” the narrator said. “Some people say Trump and Kushner were incompetent when it came to COVID. But let’s call it what it is: evil.”There is usually a method to the Lincoln Project’s machinations. In June, for example, the group “bought up airtime in Washington, D.C., with the goal of forcing the president to view a 48-second attack ad about the personal wealth [recently ousted campaign manager Brad] Parscale had accumulated in the four years since he started working for him during the last election,” Olivia Nuzzi reported in New York. “Trump did see the ad, and, later, he asked Parscale why it contained footage of ‘ass slapping,'” a brief detail the group apparently just threw in.”The president wonders who’s truly loyal to him and who’s not and who’s making a buck on him,” George Conway, one of the group’s founders, told New York, and from his perspective, “triggering Trump’s paranoia” is one way to defeat him. “It doesn’t matter who is the captain of the SS Trump, because Trump is the one who is going to run it into the iceberg in the end,” he added. “If there’s more chaos, all the better. We try to trigger the chaos in Trump’s DNA.” It isn’t clear if there is a specific goal in targeting Kushner.More stories from theweek.com Melania Trump reportedly taped making ‘disparaging’ remarks about president and his children Putin critic Navalny was poisoned, German hospital says The wackiest moments of the 2020 RNC roll call USA TODAY Among the centers of the investigation is Trump’s Seven Springs property in northern Westchester County, which netted him a major tax break. Business Insider Senior Trump administration officials told the Daily Beast that Jared Kushner was behind an order from Russia that was ultimately unusable. Reuters Erdogan says Greece ‘sowing chaos’ in Mediterranean President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday Turkey’s navy will not back down as Greece “sows chaos” in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, where the countries have deployed frigates in an escalating rhetorical confrontation over overlapping resource claims. “The ones who throw Greece in front of the Turkish navy will not stand behind them,” Erdogan said after a cabinet meeting. “Greece has declared its own Navtex unlawfully and in a spoiled manner…With this approach, Greece has sown a chaos that it will not be able to escape from,” Erdogan said. USA TODAY Last week, a federal judge rejected Trump’s latest efforts to withhold his tax returns from a Manhattan prosecutor investigating alleged hush money payments. The Week Jerry Falwell Jr. says his wife had an affair with the Florida ‘pool boy,’ claims they were being blackmailed Suspended Liberty University leader Jerry Falwell Jr. confirmed to Washington Examiner columnist Paul Bedard late Sunday that his wife, Becki Falwell, had an affair with a young man they befriended and went into business with in Florida eight years ago. In a long statement, Falwell said he and his wife “forgave each other” — he suggested he had also “important smaller things” to atone for, quoting a Bible verse about visual adultery — and had decided to come forward because his wife’s former lover had been extorting them for “huge amounts of monies” to stay quiet. “I’m just tired of it,” Falwell told Bedard.Falwell said the young man — Giancarlo Granda — had created a “‘fatal attraction’ type situation,” referring to a famous 1987 movie in which a jilted extramarital lover boiled a pet rabbit, among other acts of retaliatory intimidation. Granda, 21 at the time of the affair, told the Examiner in an email that “any allegation of extortion” is false, “defamatory, and belied by clear documentary evidence,” adding that the attempt by the Falwells “to sandbag me” with this “last-minute story” just “reeks of desperation,” and “the WHOLE truth will come out.”The salacious nature of the relationship between the Falwells and Granda emerged when Michael Cohen, the former fixer and lawyer for President Trump, told comedian Tom Arnold in a secretly taped conversation that he had destroyed risqué “personal” photographs involving the “pool boy” on behalf of Falwell weeks before Falwell unexpectedly endorsed Trump for president.Falwell said Sunday he “was not involved” in his wife’s “inappropriate personal relationship” with Granda, and mentioned “fantastic” and “prurient, untrue aspects” of the relationship “based on the individual’s misrepresentations.”Liberty University, a conservative evangelical Christian college founded by Jerry Falwell Sr., confirmed Friday that Falwell has been placed on indefinite paid suspension while the university investigates “various rumors and claims” about him and decides if he will be fired. He makes about $1 million a year as president of Liberty University, The News & Advance reports.Falwell, 58, has been on leave since apologizing for posting (then deleting) a photo of himself with his arm around a woman, both their pants partially unzipped, at a “Trailer Park Boys” costume party on a 164-foot, six-bedroom yacht owned by NASCAR mogul Rick Hendrick. Falwell’s family has reportedly been taking family vacations on the yacht since Liberty University signed a multi-million-dollar sponsorship deal with Hendrick Motorsports.More stories from theweek.com Melania Trump reportedly taped making ‘disparaging’ remarks about president and his children Putin critic Navalny was poisoned, German hospital says The wackiest moments of the 2020 RNC roll call Associated Press Pompeo shattering precedent, sparking fury with RNC speech Mike Pompeo’s planned speech to the Republican National Convention this week has sparked a fury of criticism for breaking decades of precedent for sitting secretaries of state avoiding overt partisan political activity. Despite State Department assurances that Pompeo will be speaking in his personal capacity and won’t violate prohibitions on federal employees participating in public political events on duty, Democrats and others have cried foul. Four teams of lawyers, including the State Department legal counsel, have reviewed the speech that will be recorded in Jerusalem and broadcast in prime time at the Republican convention on Tuesday to ensure that it does not cross ethical lines, according to a person close to Pompeo who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Reuters In China, a Trump wax statue maker laments virus impact For Zeng Sheng, the manager at Shanghai Maiyi Arts, this autumn should have been a boon for business: with the U.S. presidential election, demand for the centre’s wax replicas of Donald Trump should have been off the charts. “Tourist sites, amusement parks, houses of famous people are temporarily not open,” Zeng said. Shanghay Maiyi Arts was founded in 2012 as a manufacturer and supplier of wax figures. Popular Mechanics Spoiler: You’ll still be able to vote on November 3. More From Yahoo Money