Lewis County Herald - Serving Hohenwald, Lewis County Tennessee Since 1898

Confirmed by the Senate, Amy Coney Barrett is the newest Supreme Court justice. Barrett takes the bench one month after her nomination following the death of Justice Ruth Badar Ginsburg. The court now holds a 6-3 conservative majority.

The dreaded fall surge, warned about in the spring, seems to have made its appearance. The US has seen almost half a million new coronavirus cases in one week. The American Academy of Pediatrics says it’s seen a 14% increase in child Covid-19 cases over the last two weeks.

The 2020 election has proved to be the biggest headline in the US for quite some time now. Last week, the Supreme Court upheld a ruling by a state court in Pennsylvania extending the mail-in ballot deadline there. Democrats in Wisconsin, however, were delivered a blow when the court rejected their attempt to extend the state’s mail-in ballot deadline past Election Day. With all the talk of civil unrest following next week’s contentious election, the Department of Homeland Security is putting personnel on standby and has been regularly training agents.

Tens of thousands of US and Japanese troops will begin joint military exercises in the Pacific this week. The military operations are a signal to China that the US backs Japan’s claim to the Senkaku Islands, a Japanese-controlled area that both Japan and China claim as their own.

Speaking of Japan, their new Prime Minister, Yoshihide Suga, says the country is aiming to have zero emissions and be carbon neutral by 2050.

NASA has made an exciting announcement. Recent data gathered by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has confirmed there may be more wayer on the moon than previously believed, including on its sunlit side. This changes scientists’ understanding of the moon’s surface, how it works, and what’s within it, and it could be a resource in deep space exploration and missions like NASA’s return of humans to the lunar surface through the Artemis program.