Columbus City Council to Consider Police Hate-Group Screening Legislation

The Columbus City Council is working on legislation to screen the police for affiliations with hate groups or for harboring beliefs consistent with these groups. Last Monday, Shayla Favor, a councilmember and chair of the Criminal Justice Committee, held a meeting at which she presented the outlines of her legislative initiative. There will be another hearing at Wednesday, July 20, at 3 p.m. Favor will then finish drafting police-screening legislation and include it in a larger piece of public safety legislation that will be presented to the city council on July 27, the last meeting before the August recess.

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Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, Four Others Arrested in $60 Million Bribery Case

Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and four others were arrested Tuesday in a $60 million federal bribery probe, a person briefed on the investigation confirmed.

U.S. Attorney David DeVillers’ office would not discuss details of the case, which it planned to outline at a briefing later Tuesday.

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Ohio in the ‘Yellow Zone’ Accounting to White House Task Force Report

Ohio is in the “yellow zone” for coronavirus cases, according to a White House Coronavirus Task Force report that presents a list of suggested actions.

The July 14 report is available here. The Ohio data begins on Page 246.

The classification means Ohio had between 10 to 100 new cases per 100,000 residents the week before the report was released, and the yellow zone for test positivity, indicating a rate between 5 percent to 10 percent.

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Commentary: Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence

Dr. Carl Sagan was one of the premier scientists when it came to trying to bridge the gap of hard science with general public understanding. In the process, his personal enthusiasm for the wonder of science became evident to all. He also understood that science could be hijacked and that the highest standards of evidence were required when fantastic claims were being made.

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Christopher Nolan’s ‘Tenet’ Delayed Indefinitely by Virus

Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet,” which had hoped to herald Hollywood’s return to big theatrical releases, has yet again postponed its release due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Warner Bros. said Monday that “Tenet” will not make its August 12 release date. Unlike previous delays, the studio this time didn’t announce a new target for the release of Nolan’s much-anticipated $200 million thriller.

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Zuckerberg Mocks Conspiracy Theory Suggesting He Forged a Secret Deal with Trump as ‘Pretty Ridiculous’

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg dismissed speculation that he and President Donald Trump have come to an understanding in an interview published Monday.

“I’ve heard this speculation, too, so let me be clear: There’s no deal of any kind,” Zuckerberg said in an interview with Axios published Monday.

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US Attorney Fired by Trump Administration Awarded a Professorship at Stanford Law

Stanford Law School welcomed a former Manhattan federal prosecutor to a visiting professorship for the fall semester after he was fired by President Donald Trump in June.

Geoffrey S. Berman received his law degree from Stanford Law in 1984 and will return as a visiting professor to teach an elective course titled “Prosecutorial Discretion and Ethical Duties in the Enforcement of Federal Criminal Law,” the school announced in a Wednesday press release.

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Now Dead, ‘Men’s Rights’ Lawyer Roy Den Hollander Is the Prime Suspect in the Shooting of New Jersey Judge’s Family

A self-described “anti-feminist” lawyer found dead in the Catskills of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound is considered the prime suspect in the shooting of a federal judge’s family in New Jersey, the FBI said Monday.

Roy Den Hollander, who received media attention including appearances on Fox News and Comedy Central for lawsuits challenging perceived infringements of “men’s rights,” was found dead Monday in Sullivan County, New York, two officials with knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press.

The FBI said Den Hollander was the “primary subject in the attack” and confirmed he had been pronounced dead but provided no other details.

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Commentary: Time to Adopt a ‘Second Tower’ Mentality

Few who were alive at the time can forget the moment the first plane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. Over the intervening 18 minutes, people remarked that there were 10,000 people in those buildings on any given workday. And some talked about a B-25 that crashed into the Empire State Building in dense fog in 1945. Nearly all were wondering how those kinds of accidents can still happen in the 21st century. In those tense minutes, everyone knew something was terribly wrong, but they were in a First Tower Mentality.

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Guidance for Masks in Schools Varies Widely Across US States

School districts that plan to reopen classrooms in the fall are wrestling with whether to require teachers and students to wear face masks — an issue that has divided urban and rural schools and yielded widely varying guidance.

The divide has also taken on political dimensions in Iowa, among other places, where Democratic-leaning cities like Des Moines and Iowa City have required masks to curb the spread of the coronavirus, while smaller, more conservative communities have left the decision to parents.

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