By Holly Thomas
TOP STORIES Tuesday, August 4
CENSUS COUNTING CUT SHORT The Census Bureau will end its counting efforts for the 2020 census on Sept. 30, a month earlier than planned. The bureau had expected to continue field data collection, which includes door-knocking, phone calls and online responses, until Oct. 31. The date had been pushed back from a July 31 deadline after the coronavirus pandemic complicated field operations. Census Bureau employees expressed fears of a “massive undercount” as a result of the “impossible” task of completing the count by the new deadline. [HuffPost]
MANHATTAN DA PROBING ‘EXTENSIVE’ CRIMINAL CONDUCT AT TRUMP ORG The Manhattan district attorney’s office is investigating President Donald Trump and his business for bank and insurance fraud, according to court documents filed to support the demand for Trump’s tax returns. The documents mention “public reports of possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization.” The office was already investigating hush-money payments Trump’s legal team made to two women who claim to have had affairs with Trump. This comes as Deutsche Bank investigates the longtime banker of Donald Trump and Jared Kushner in a Manhattan condo deal. [HuffPost]
TRUMP’S CORONAVIRUS STRATEGY COMES INTO VIEW: DENIAL, LIES, INSULTS As Trump’s disastrous mishandling of the pandemic leaves it raging out of control in much of the U.S., he has made clear his only strategy is to twist reality. He tried to recast a second COVID-19 surge as an achievement for the U.S. in an interview with Axios. When a CNN reporter asked him why U.S. deaths were soaring, Trump snapped, “Fake news CNN, hold it.” And when Dr. Anthony Fauci pointed out Europe has more effectively fought the virus, Trump tweeted, “Wrong!” [HuffPost]