Miami Herald: “As cases ballooned in August … the Florida Department of Health changed the way it reported death data to the CDC, giving the appearance of a pandemic in decline, an analysis of Florida data by the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald found.

On Monday, Florida death data would have shown an average of 262 daily deaths reported to the CDC over the previous week had the health department used its former reporting system, the Herald analysis showed. Instead, the Monday update from Florida showed just 46 ‘new deaths’ per day over the previous seven days.”

Open Secrets: “On Friday, the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol sent letters requesting information from 15 social media companies. On Aug. 25, the select committee sent requests to federal agencies for records related to the riot.

“The letters ask agencies from the National Archives and Records Administration to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice to expedite the gathering of the records, asking for information within two-weeks.

“The House subpoena names Caroline Wren, a veteran GOP fundraiser who received at least $170,000 from the Trump political operation as the campaign’s national finance consultant with the joint fundraising committee. Wren was listed as a “VIP Advisor” on the permit granted by the National Park Service for the Jan. 6 rally…”

“But since Trump’s campaign and joint fundraising committee funneled millions of dollars through layers of opaque firms and shell companies where the ultimate payee is hidden, the public may never know the full extent of the Trump campaign’s payments to organizers involved in the protests. “

Bloomberg: “[Interesting] new data on the overlap of electoral politics and economic dynamism suggest another reason: The geography of America’s economic engine is heavily concentrated in counties that Joe Biden won in 2020. These counties are much more heavily vaccinated than the rest of the country and thus better able to withstand the economic effects of Covid’s delta variant.

“The shift of U.S. economic production toward blue counties predates the arrival of the coronavirus. After the 2016 election, Mark Muro, the policy director of the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Project, found that the 472 counties Hillary Clinton won produced 64% of the country’s economic output, while the 2,584 counties Donald Trump won contributed just 36%. That was a significant jump from the 2000 election, when the blue-red county economic split was 54% to 46%. Muro dubbed this divide ‘high-output America’ vs. ‘low-output America.’

“Last year, after Biden defeated Trump, Muro looked again and found that the economic output divide has grown even more pronounced. The 520 counties Biden won account for fully 71% of U.S. gross domestic product, while the 2,564 that Trump carried produced just 29%. In other words, America’s economic engine is bluer than ever.”

Independent: “Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who previously warned of the ‘huge consequences’ of withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan, has now reportedly attempted to charter flights out of the country for the country’s at-risk women…

“‘Last week, the evacuation options to get women’s rights activists out came largely from an informal network of powerful, connected, some very wealthy people, some trying to literally charter private jets to evacuate women thought to be Taliban targets,’ Marie Clarke, the vice-president of global programmes at Women for Women International, told The Guardian.”