THE BIG STORY

Congress has stopped negotiating on coronavirus aid, as tens of millions of people remain out of work

Nearly three weeks after unemployment benefits expired, the US Senate has now adjourned for a month — a sign that there will be no coronavirus relief package passed this summer.

The House had already recessed for summer. But on Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell scheduled the next Senate vote for Tuesday, Sept. 8.

This has significant implications: it makes it unlikely that a new coronavirus aid will arrive to rescue Americans who need it. Talks between Democrats and the White House are at a standstill and the sides are not currently in active negotiations. On top of that, both parties will turn their attention to their presidential conventions in the coming weeks.

The delay could be catastrophic for millions of Americans. In March, Congress extended $600-a-week federal unemployment benefits on top of state benefits due to the coronavirus pandemic. That benefit expired at the end of July.

Eric Baradat / Getty Images

STAYING ON TOP OF THIS

Coronavirus testing in hot spot states is declining — and nobody knows why. That’s bad.

Coronavirus testing in Texas and Florida has declined at an alarming rate. An epidemiologist told us, “I think we should be very concerned.”

Although testing sites in Florida were closed for a few days because of Tropical Storm Isaias, the main problem isn’t a lack of availability of testing sites and appointments. Rather, it seems largely to be driven by people choosing not to get tested.

Here’s why this is a problem: Epidemiologists say the drop in volume of tests means the states are flying in the dark precisely when surveillance systems are urgently needed to detect any uptick in cases caused by school reopenings.

SNAPSHOTS

Belarusians are walking out of work and accusing police of torture as protests grip the country. The first cracks began to show in the authoritarian regime of President Alexander Lukashenko as a senior official and police officers resigned in protest over violence against demonstrators.

We received documents showing how the feds monitored BLM protests. There was only one mention of white supremacists. Records obtained by BuzzFeed News show agents monitored protesters’ social media and braced for battle.

Kamala Harris is eligible to be vice president. Some Republicans are pretending she isn’t. Harris was born in California and is eligible to be president or vice president. But the same old birther hoax is making rounds on Fox News and social media.

Apple booted Fortnite from the Apple Store and now the companies are in a legal fight. Apple removed the popular game after its developer implemented a payment option designed to avoid paying the tech giant a commission. Epic Games filed a lawsuit against Apple alleging “anti-competitive restraints and monopolistic practices.”

A video captured the moment an officer saved a man right as a train almost struck him. Officer Erika Urrea is being hailed as a hero after pulling a man whose wheelchair was stuck in railroad tracks out of the path of an oncoming train.

IN THE BALANCE

Facebook’s preferential treatment of US conservatives puts its fact-checking program in danger

Since at least late 2016, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has defended Facebook by insisting it should not be “an arbiter of truth.” The company created a third-party fact-checking program to fill the role of umpire.

The way the program is supposed to work is: if a page is flagged for false content, there are serious consequences. But as we reported last week, the company gave preferential treatment to several conservative pages.

We spoke with the journalists and researchers at the dozens of organizations that make up Facebook’s fact-checking operation. They say the social media giant often does act as the arbiter.

Some told BuzzFeed News they were surprised to learn their verdicts had been ignored or overruled by Facebook in a closed-door process with little transparency, and warned that this risks undermining the program’s credibility.

MAKE SOME TEA, HAVE A GOOD SIT

Slow down your weekend with these longreads

The utter helplessness of looking for a job in the middle of a pandemic. Harshita Muraka lays out the reality of trying to land a job under these conditions. “For good or for bad, Zoom interviews now leave me feeling morose,” she writes.

We aren’t holding the right people responsible for cancel culture. I wrote about the unproductive conversation on cancel culture, and why it’s a technology problem. From the piece: “Our behaviors on these platforms are too often conflated with who we are. This is to our detriment. We forget that the platforms themselves impact behavior, mediate it, intercept it, and reframe it.”

10 great books that are out in paperback this month. André Aciman's follow-up to Call Me By Your Name, Rivers Solomon's deep-sea novella, an anthology of essays to mothers, and more.

Wishing you the courage to articulate your needs today,

Elamin