The Morning Dispatch: Joe Biden Takes the Stage

Happy Friday! Thank goodness the DNC is over—your Morning Dispatchers can finally start putting this newsletter to bed before 2 a.m. again. Oh, what’s that? The RNC starts on Monday?
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
The United States confirmed 48,266 new cases of COVID-19 yesterday, with 7.3 percent of the 661,228 tests reported coming back positive. An additional 1,278 deaths were attributed to the virus on Thursday, bringing the pandemic’s American death toll to 174,248.


Longtime Trump aide Steve Bannon, along with three co-conspirators, was indicted on federal fraud charges for “orchestrat[ing] a scheme to defraud hundreds of thousands of donors” as part of an online crowdfunding campaign to build a wall on the United States’ southern border. Bannon pleaded not guilty.
Initial weekly unemployment claims increased slightly week-over-week according to the Labor Department, from 971,000 two weeks ago to 1,106,000 the week ending August 15.