Names and faces

■ A Connecticut city won’t waste an opportunity to get a sizable donation from comedian John Oliver about a weekslong joke pertaining to the name of a sewage plant in the area. Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton said on WTNH-TV that he would accept Oliver’s challenge to name the city’s sewage plant after him after Oliver’s offer to donate $55,000 to local charities. But Boughton said there was one stipulation to the facility’s renaming. “We do have one very specific condition. You must come here to Danbury and be physically present when we cut the ribbon,” he said in a Facebook video posted Sunday. The announcement was the latest volley in a war of words between the host of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” and Boughton after Oliver first bashed Danbury on Aug. 16 during a segment on racial disparities in jury selection that was actually focused on other areas of Connecticut. “If you’re going to forget a town in Connecticut, why not forget Danbury?” Oliver said. He finished his rant with a taunt: “If you’re from there, you have a standing invite to come get a thrashing from John Oliver — children included.” Boughton followed up with an Aug. 22 Facebook post that showed the mayor in front of the city’s sewage plant. “We are going to rename it the John Oliver Memorial Sewer Plant,” the Republican mayor said. “Why? Because it’s full of crap just like you, John.” Oliver raised the stakes on his Aug. 30 show by offering to donate $55,000 to Danbury-area charities if officials followed through on naming the plant after him.

■ WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is set to fight for his freedom in a British court after a decade of legal drama, as he challenges American authorities’ attempt to extradite him on spying charges over the site’s publication of secret U.S. military documents. Lawyers for Assange and the U.S. government are scheduled to face off in London today at an extradition hearing that was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic. American prosecutors have indicted the 49-year-old Australian on 18 espionage and computer misuse charges adding up to a maximum sentence of 175 years. Assange attorney Jennifer Robinson said the case “is fundamentally about basic human rights and freedom of speech.” “Journalists and whistle-blowers who reveal illegal activity by companies or governments and war crimes — such as the publications Julian has been charged for — should be protected from prosecution,” she said. American prosecutors allege that Assange conspired with former U.S. army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to hack into a Pentagon computer and release hundreds of thousands of secret diplomatic cables and military files.

Assange

Oliver