El Jefe Cat Lounge. El Jefe Cat Lounge opened up last year, but, for obvious reasons, was shut down the past few months. But they just reopened! And if you haven’t been yet, for god’s sake, go check it out and go get some of the serotonin we all need so desperately right now. It’s a beautiful, three-story facility with dozens of kitties that are available to snuggle with, and to adopt! Wear a face mask, observe social distancing with other humans and head on over. Reservations at eljefecatlounge.com are recommended, but not required. 3025 N. Campbell Ave, suite 141. $12/person/hour. Details here.

Taste of the Fair & Drive-In Movie Weekend. Ahh, remember the fair? Remember being in crowds of people, touching door handles and sitting at dirty picnic tables? The cool thing about this weekend is that it has the good parts of the fair without so many of the bad parts: Just visit the five concession stands and pick up some treats, then enjoy them either at spaced out picnic tables or on your own lawn chairs. Entry and admission are free! If you want to stay late and pay $15 per vehicle, check out this week’s drive-in movies too: Friday is Secret Life of Pets 2 (8 p.m. showtime) & The Karate Kid (10:30 p.m. showtime), and Sunday is Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (10:30 p.m. showtime). Friday, Aug. 28 and Saturday, Aug. 30. Doors for Taste of the Fair open at 5 p.m. Pima County Fairgrounds, 11300 S. Houghton Road. Details here.

Sculpture Showing: The Return of Angelica. Back in May, local artist John Benedict had one of his statues, Angelica, stolen. Angelica was recently recovered, and will be on display for the public at the Hacienda del Sol Guest Ranch Inner Courtyard through Saturday, Sept. 12. This is the last time to see the statue before John places it in his permanent collection! He’ll be around on select days for a socially-distanced meet and greet, including from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. this Friday, Aug. 28. While you’re there, enjoy a special Angelica’s Revenge cocktail. In honor of Angelica, and of justice, of course. On display 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily through Saturday, Sept. 12. Hacienda Del Sol Guest Ranch Resort, 5501 N. Hacienda del Sol Road. Details here.

The Positivity of Art. What’s been keeping you sane these days? For us, one of those things is art, and thank goodness for the local artists who still have it in them to create during these crazy times. The Wilde Meyer Gallery is featuring a group show of gallery artists throughout August and September, in a space that’s carefully following COVID-19 guidelines. Wilde Meyer Gallery, 2890 E. Skyline Drive, suite 170.

Since 2018, Pima County’s criminal justice agencies have been working on a proposal for a new Community Bond Program wherein the county would fund a non-profit bonding agency and help bail out qualifying defendants in the Pima County jail, under certain circumstances.

The program is intended to help reduce the size of the county jail population, and help prevent defendants from being incarcerated for weeks, months or years when they have not been convicted of a crime. It would apply to defendants in both felony and misdemeanor cases.

“Individuals who are incarcerated pre-trial are mostly confined not because they were denied bail or were a flight risk or were a danger to the public, but rather because they could not muster the financial resources needed to secure their freedom,” said Public Defense Services Director Dean Brault in the proposal. “An individual’s inability to afford monetary bail is not an indicator of that individual’s guilt, an accurate predictor of the risk of danger that individual poses to others, or an indicator of whether that individual will show up for a scheduled court proceeding.”

Brault said incarcerating individuals who cannot afford money bail without meaningfully considering other alternatives is a violation of those individuals’ due process and equal protection rights under the law.

The non-profit in charge of the Community Bond Program would offer to bail out any defendant who Pretrial Services recommends be released, and their bond is $30,000 or less. This program would not be available in cases with homicide, sex or child exploitation charges or if the defendant has a hold from another jurisdiction.

This article is part of Electionland, ProPublica’s collaborative reporting project covering problems that prevent eligible voters from casting their ballots during the 2020 elections. Sign up to receive updates about our voting coverage and more each week.

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Renowned inventor Walter Hutchins has voted in every presidential election since 1952. This year, as many states stopped sending teams to help seniors vote, his nursing home was on coronavirus lockdown and his streak was in jeopardy. Read the story.

What to Know About Voting in 2020

• Here’s how to vote in all 50 states. (FiveThirtyEight, Axios)
• Here’s what to know about vote by mail and making sure your ballot counts. (The Guardian, US News & World Report, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Cyberscoop)
• Here’s what to know about voting by mail in Texas. (The Houston Chronicle, The Texas Tribune)
• Here’s how the mail voting process works in Colorado. (The Denver Post)
• Here’s what to know about voting in Pennsylvania. (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
• Here’s how the voting process is changing this year due to the pandemic. (BuzzFeed News)
• The USPS launched a site to answer questions on mail voting. (USPS)
• Here’s advice on how to prepare your newsroom to cover voting this year. (Knight-Cronkite News Lab)

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• More than 550,000 mail ballots were rejected in this year’s presidential primaries, per a new analysis. (NPR)
• University of Florida professor Michael McDonald is tracking mail ballot requests by party in several states. (Michael McDonald)
• North Carolina is the first state to begin voting for president and has seen 10 times the number of absentee ballot requests as in the same period in 2016. (ABC News)
• Democratic super PACs plan to spend more than $7 million on ads encouraging mail voting. (CNN)
• Some Black and Latino voters are distrustful of mail voting, surveys show. (Politico)
• Missouri spent tens of thousands of dollars on ballot drop boxes that won’t be used the fall. (KSN)

PHOENIX – When the Milwaukee Bucks declined to take the floor for Game 5 of their series with the Orlando Magic Wednesday in protest of the police shooting of Jacob Blake, their seismic decision reverberated throughout professional sports. One by one, the NBA’s three Wednesday playoff games were postponed. Hours later, the Milwaukee Brewers also elected not to play in their Wednesday night contest with the Cincinnati Reds.

Multiple Major League Baseball teams followed their lead. The Arizona Diamondbacks did not on Wednesday, but on Thursday elected not to play.

“Today is not necessarily about not playing. It’s about creating an avenue to discuss why we aren’t playing. … It’s about making people better, making people aware,” pitcher Archie Bradley said.

It's another documentary-centric week at The Loft, with four of the five new streaming offerings falling into that film space.

For those who have been keeping tabs and partaking in The Loft's streaming services during the pandemic, you already know; your favorite local theater has kept it going with the good movie fuel, with fresh films every week to enrich your forced-home entertainment soul.

To stream these films, visit loftcinema.org

House of Cardin


A career retrospective on fashion great Pierre Cardin.

The August Virgin



A Madrid based, breezy romantic charmer from director Jonas Trueba.

Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin


A new documentary from director Werner Herzog. What more do you need to know? Have at it.


Epicentro


A doc on post-colonial Cuba.


Mr. SOUL!


A film studying Ellis Hazlip, host of Amerca's first "Black Tonight Show."

WASHINGTON – Most Republicans watched President Donald Trump’s acceptance speech from their couches Thursday but Gov. Doug Ducey watched from the South Lawn of the White House.

The invitation for Ducey and his wife to be on hand for the speech is just the latest example of Ducey’s increasingly cozy relationship with the administration. Thursday’s visit was Ducey’s second trip to the White House this month and at least his third this year, while Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have made repeated trips to Arizona in recent months.

“We’ve had a tremendous relationship,” Trump said during a Ducey visit earlier this month, “You’ve done a fantastic job. We’re very proud of you.”

The feeling is apparently mutual.

“Gov. Ducey is honored to be invited to the White House for this historic occasion and to support President Trump,” Ducey spokesman Patrick Ptak said Thursday. “The governor is very grateful for the leadership of President Trump and Vice President Pence, especially their support of Arizona through this pandemic.”

One analyst said it just makes sense for the governor to have a good relationship with the president.

“It’s an honor to be invited to see history … I applaud the governor for doing that,” said Jason Rose, a Republican political consultant in Arizona. “No secret that this governor has enjoyed a good working relationship with the president, and especially with the vice president.”

But another noted that Trump needs Arizona, which is widely expected to be a battleground state in this fall’s elections, and that “photo ops with the governor is one way to get on the news at night.”

It’s probably fair to say that Linda Ronstadt is the most-impressive Tucsonan ever born here. And, with his passing late Thursday evening, it’s undeniable that Lute Olson is the most-impressive Tucsonan to have lived and died here. Olson had been in failing health after suffering multiple strokes. He was 85.

There is no way to overstate what Olson did for the University of Arizona, its basketball program, the city of Tucson, and the state of Arizona. He was a towering basketball god, recognizable worldwide for his physical stature, his steely presence on the sidelines, and, most notably, for his perfectly coiffed silver hair. Through work ethic and excellence, he brought status and pride to the community and he was absolutely beloved for his efforts. In a country with several huge metropolises in which an urban sport like basketball can flourish, it’s remarkable that the three meccas of the collegiate sport are Durham, North Carolina; Lexington, Kentucky; and Tucson, Arizona.

Even more than a decade after he stepped down, when a kid in Ivory Coast or Costa Rica, Budapest or Singapore picks up a basketball, they know about Arizona. It’s a legacy well-earned and one cherished by Tucsonans.

Olson took a circuitous route to Arizona after starting his coaching career as a high-school coach in Southern California. It’s rare, but not totally unheard of, for a prep coach to make the leap to a major-college job. He started out coaching high school ball in Minnesota, the state in which he had graduated from Augsburg College. While at Augsburg, he played four years of football and basketball (going by “Luke” Olson). His senior year, he even played a season of baseball and was named the school’s athlete of the year.

The number of Arizona’s confirmed novel coronavirus cases topped 200,000 as of Friday, Aug. 28, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.

Pima County had seen 21,072 of the state’s 200,658 confirmed cases.

With 49 new deaths reported today, a total of 4,978 Arizonans had died after contracting COVID-19, according to the Aug. 28 report.

The number of hospitalized COVID cases continues to decline. ADHS reported that as of Aug. 27, 809 COVID patients were hospitalized in the state, the lowest that number has been since May 22, when 784 people were hospitalized. That number peaked at 3,517 on July 13.

A total of 922 people visited ERs on Aug. 27 with COVID symptoms. That number peaked at 2,008 on July 7 and has bounced between 900 and 1,100 for most of August.

A total of 272 COVID-19 patients were in intensive care unit beds on Aug. 27. That number has been cut in half since the beginning of August. The number in ICUs peaked at 970 on July 13.

In Pima County, the week-by-week counting of cases peaked the week ending July 4 with 2,398 cases, according to an Aug. 26 report from the Pima County Health Department. Those numbers have dropped with Pima County requiring the wearing of masks in public but they have bumped upward recent weeks, with 804 cases in the week ending Aug. 8 and 930 cases in the week ending Aug. 15. (Not all recent cases may have been reported.)

Deaths in Pima County are down from a peak of 54 in the week ending July 4 to 35 for the week ending Aug. 8 and 15 for the week ending Aug. 15.

Hospitalization peaked the week ending July 18 with 247 COVID patients admitted to Pima County hospitals. For the week ending Aug. 15, 63 COVID patients were admitted to Pima County hospitals.

State hits benchmark allowing shuttered biz to reopen

Arizona reached certain benchmarks allowing for the reopening of Indoor gyms, movie theaters, bars serving food, water parks and tubing operations in Pima and Maricopa counties.

State metrics reached the “moderate” COVID-19 transmission category yesterday.

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