A California shark lab tagged a record number of sharks off the Southern California coast this year KCTV

First tyrannosaur embryo fossils revealed National Geographic (The Rev Kev)

Neil deGrasse Tyson warns asteroid could hit Earth the day before the election The Hill. UserFriendly  “can I vote for the asteroid?”

NASA will (hopefully) snag samples from an asteroid for the first time ever on Oct. 20 Houston Chronicle

Want a bicycle by Christmas? ‘If you leave it till December there will be no stock’ Guardian

Turkey farmers fear that, this year, they’ve bred too many big birds WaPo. A confession. I don’t really care for turkey. Even when I start with a quality bird, brine it, and smoke/roast it on my Big Green Egg. Thanksgiving remains by favourite holiday, because – in spite of Black Friday craziness – our overlords have yet to figure out how to commercialize it.

A rope bridge restored a highway through the trees for endangered gibbons Science News

#COVID-19

Developing | Coronavirus: Hong Kong to relax social-distancing rules around local tours and weddings, as city expects about five new Covid-19 cases SCMP

Covid-19’s Global Divide: As West Reels, Asia Keeps Virus at Bay WSJ

Trump calls Fauci a ‘disaster’ and seeks to reassure his team he can win Reuters

One doctor’s campaign to stop a covid-19 vaccine being rushed through before Election Day MIT Technology Review

Official numbers reveal Manchester and other cities under Tier 3 threat could be BEATING coronavirus as Andy Burnham admits he can’t defy PM – but prepares one last cash demand before midday deadline to lock down his city Daily Mail

Ireland announces six-week coronavirus lockdown Politico

Science/Medicine

Prospects for a safe COVID-19 vaccine Science

Covid-19: Do many people have pre-existing immunity? British Medical Journal Note this Counterargument to footnote [2] on serology in Lambert’s Romer post of yesterday.

Efficacy of Povidone-Iodine Nasal and Oral Antiseptic Preparations Against Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Sage Jounals

STAT-Harris Poll: The share of Americans interested in getting Covid-19 vaccine as soon as possible is dropping Stat

Covid: firm secures £10m to infect young volunteers to hasten vaccine Guardian

Class Warfare

How The Fed Rescued Corporations And Let Everyone Else Suffer The Daily Poster

An American lynching: ‘I could hear their screams’ Al Jazeera. I post this as an example of how some others see shameful U.S. history.

Exclusive | Cathay Pacific ‘to axe 6,000 staff and Dragon brand’ in bid to stay afloat SCMP

China?

China Acceleration May Not Rescue World From Coronavirus Slowdown WSJ

Eyeing China, Australia joins ‘Quad’ drill with US, Japan, India Al Jazeera

India

Lawsuit challenges Donald Trump’s new H-1B visa rules, calls it ‘arbitrary, incorrect’ Scroll

Coronavirus Daily Updates: India Records Lowest Daily Caseload Since July 23 The Wire

Pakistan

Pakistan’s opposition is publicly naming all-powerful army as root of all evil. But what now? The Print

Bolivia

Bolivia Has Won. Will Trump Win Too? Moon of Alabama

Evo Morales’s Party’s Massive Victory Is a Rebuke to US Elites Who Hailed the Coup Jacobin

France

Social media groups under fire in France over Islamist killing FT

France teacher attack: Four pupils held over beheading BBC

The agitators are right next door Qantara

Belarus

Lukashenko’s Opponents Regroup in Lithuania Der Spiegel

Brexit

Brexit: Have EU-UK trade talks reached a dead end? BBC

Britannic Impunity: Torture and the UK Overseas Operations Bill Counterpunch

Nagorno-Karabakh

Nagorno-Karabakh conflict: Heavy fighting breaks out despite cease-fire Deutsche Welle

Vietnam

‘Catastrophic floods’: 105 killed, 5 million affected in Vietnam Al Jazeera

2020

I Was Reagan’s Solicitor General. Here’s What Biden Should Do With the Court. NYT. Charles Fried, one of my sparring partners at HLS – even though he was a professor and I only a lowly student. But he was also a thoroughly decent intellectual and he didn’t hide behind hierarchy.

People Need to Reclaim the Internet Craig Murray (RK)

How Would President Biden Approach Corporate Power? Big Matt Stoller

Farmers Stick With Trump, Despite Trade-War Pain WSJ

Why Do Nonwhite Georgia Voters Have to Wait in Line for Hours? Their Numbers Have Soared, and Their Polling Places Have Dwindled. ProPublica

Final Trump-Biden debate will feature ‘mute’ button after chaotic first clash Reuters

Deadlocked Supreme Court Allows Extra Time for Some Pennsylvania Ballots NYT

Press Worries About a Fracking Ban’s ‘Risk’ to Democrats—Not Fracking’s Threat to Planet FAIR

‘The Emails Are Russian’ Will Be The Narrative, Regardless Of Facts Or Evidence Caitlin Johnstone

An Argument with Nathan Robinson about Whether the Left Should Support Joe Biden in the General Election Benjamin Studebaker

Voter Intimidation Could Get Very Ugly Capital & Main. Yes, all pearl-clutching aside, we have a sad and sorry history of that.

Trump taps 2016 brain trust to stage another stunner in 2020 Politico

Trump Transition

Donald Trump Is No ‘Phony’ PopulistAmerican Conservative

PART FOUR: “YOU THINK OUR COUNTRY’S SO INNOCENT?” Intercept. This is part four, which is the only part I’ve had time to read before I must post Links today. I’ll catch up with the other three parts later.

Our Famously Free Press

Is he getting invites from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, or MSNBC? No. Like all of us, he basically got banned for the wrong opinion on the collusion story. Print media like the New Yorker bashes him as a pathological red. So you’d like him to voluntarily close off all other platforms? https://t.co/kSJVKyc4Ih

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) October 20, 2020

Whatever your ideology: just stop and ponder what a powerful weapon it is to train a population to believe some mid-rate foreign power is behind all of the nation’s woes – so they never focus on real domestic power – and to instantly disregard all information by screaming RUSSIA.

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 20, 2020

Anyone know how long David Remnick has headed up the New Yorker? Amazing what he’s gotten away with over the decades, the sheer number of colossal journalism failures that never seem to affect his tenure.

— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) October 20, 2020

Antidote du Jour (via):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.