Ten years ago: Relations between Egypt’s Muslims and Christians reached a new low after overnight riots left 12 people dead and a church burned. Fox television announced that Paula Abdul would be one of the judges on “The X Factor,” reuniting her with former “American Idol” judge Simon Cowell (however, Abdul’s stint did not last beyond the premiere season of the new talent show).
Five years ago: London’s newly elected Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan, paid respect to the millions of Jews slain in the Holocaust as his first public engagement in office, and received a hero’s welcome from London’s Jewish community at the end. William Schallert, a veteran TV performer and Hollywood union leader who played Patty Duke’s father [–] and uncle [–] on television, died in Pacific Palisades, California at age 93.
One year ago: The White House said Katie Miller, Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary and the wife of top Trump adviser Stephen Miller, had tested positive for the coronavirus. The unemployment level surged to 14.7%, a level last seen when the country was in the throes of the Great Depression; the government reported that 20 million Americans had lost their jobs in April amid the economic fallout from the pandemic. A federal judge in Kentucky said the governor’s temporary ban on mass gatherings could not apply to in-person religious services. California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that the state would send every voter a mail-in ballot for the November election. Magician Roy Horn of the famed Las Vegas act Siegfried & Roy died in a Las Vegas hospital at the age of 75 as a result of complications from the coronavirus.
