Senators Seek Probe Of Decision To Send Ill To Nursing Homes In 5 States; Dallas County Sets New Record For Cases For Fourth Day In A Row
Media outlets report on news from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, Michigan, Maine, Texas, Georgia, and Wisconsin, as well.
Two members of the Senate are calling for an investigation of five states that ordered nursing homes to accept COVID-19-positive patients who were discharged from hospitals. Republicans Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Greg Walden of Oregon are asking Christi Grimm, Principal Deputy Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to determine if the states violated federal health care guidelines and regulations. (Jaffe, 6/29)
Dallas County continued a four-day trend of record coronavirus daily cases Monday 鈥 reporting 572 new cases. The county also reported one additional death, an Irving man in his 40s who had underlying high-risk health conditions but had not been hospitalized. (Jones, 6/29)
San Francisco voters could be weighing as many as five tax hike measures this fall, in what will be a test of how the coronavirus-fueled recession influences attitudes on economic growth and whether the city鈥檚 big businesses are paying their fair share. Four of the five tax-increase proposals 鈥 which have been placed on the November ballot but could still be withdrawn up until the end of July 鈥 were rooted in the pre-COVID days of 2019 when the city was flush with cash, the hotels were packed with business travelers, unemployment was about 2% and the growth of tech companies seemed limitless. (Dineen, 6/29)
Another Mainer has died as 28 more cases of the new coronavirus have been detected in the state, health officials said Monday. There have now been 3,219 cases across all of Maine鈥檚 counties since the outbreak began here in March, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. That鈥檚 up from 3,191 on Sunday. (Burns, 6/29)
The University of Georgia confirmed Monday that nearly 150 students and campus workers have tested positive for COVID-19. The UGA Health Center said that 143 people tested positive, according to a news release. It is unclear how many of those positive cases are students and how many are staff members. (Hansen, 6/29)
For months, Republican leaders in Texas resisted calls by Democrats to allow widespread mail-in voting, more swayed by President Trump鈥檚 concerns about mail-ballot 鈥渇raud鈥 than by the threat the coronavirus might pose at polling places. The pandemic would have run its course by the time voting began, they believed. The election had been postponed, after all, and would not take place until long after Gov. Greg Abbott had embarked on an aggressive reopening of the state. (Goodman, 6/29)
A federal appeals court panel upheld a host of Republican-authored voting restrictions in Wisconsin on Monday, handing conservatives a significant win in a pair of lawsuits just months before residents in the battleground state cast their ballots for president. The three-judge panel 鈥攁ll Republican appointees鈥 found that the state can restrict early voting hours and restored a requirement that people must live in a district for 28 days, not 10, before they can vote. The panel also said emailing and faxing absentee ballots is unconstitutional. (Richmond, 6/30)