Music: Teotima — ‘Gloves Off’
Coronavirus infections are peaking again. Here’s how it’s different this time
The New York Times reports: The first wave of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States never really ended, and cases are surging again. But this time, a different and much bigger swath of the country is feeling the effects. The first peak came at the beginning of April: About 30,000 cases were reported per day, but the biggest hotspots were concentrated in just a few regions. With the right steps, public health experts said, there was still a chance…
Young Americans are partying hard and spreading Covid-19 quickly
Bloomberg reports: Covid-19 is increasingly a disease of the young, with the message to stay home for the sake of older loved ones wearing off as the pandemic wears on. The dropping age of the infected is becoming one of the most pressing problems for local officials, who continued Wednesday to set curfews and close places where the young gather. U.S. health experts say that they are more likely to be active and asymptomatic, providing a vast redoubt for the…
Trump is in power because as a nation we have lost our way
David Rothkopf writes: “Being president,” former First Lady Michelle Obama has said, “doesn’t change who you are, it reveals who you are.” In this moment, we may also need to acknowledge that presidents also reveal much about who we are. American presidents do not exist outside the systems or times that produced them. Great presidents—like Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and, arguably, Lyndon B. Johnson—have emerged when the nation has risen to meet challenging circumstances. And, granted, most presidents…
Trump’s Mount Rushmore fireworks show is a Fourth of July attack on Indigenous people
Nick Tilsen writes: On Friday, President Donald Trump will continue his tour of racism and colonialism, moving from Tulsa, Oklahoma, to the sacred Black Hills. Make no mistake, this visit is an attack on Indigenous people. I visit the Black Hills alongside many other Lakotas every year as part of a tradition we have maintained for thousands of years. Stretching from what is now known as South Dakota into Wyoming, they are a sacred place that I take my family…
Black Lives Matter may be the largest movement in American history
The New York Times reports: The recent Black Lives Matter protests peaked on June 6, when half a million people turned out in nearly 550 places across the United States. That was a single day in more than a month of protests that still continue to today. Four recent polls — including one released this week by Civis Analytics, data science firm that works with businesses and Democratic campaigns — suggest that about 15 million to 26 million people in…
To the rest of the world, we’re now America the racist and pitiful
Robin Wright writes: The real saga of the Statue of Liberty—the symbolic face of America around the world, and the backdrop of New York’s dazzling Fourth of July fireworks show—is an obscure piece of U.S. history. It had nothing to do with immigration. The telltale clue is the chain under Lady Liberty’s feet: she is stomping on it. “In the early sketches, she was also holding chains in her hand,” Edward Berenson, a professor of history at New York University,…
How an ancient Indian emperor replaced the sound of war with the sound of ethics
Sonam Kachru writes: In the Khyber valley of Northern Pakistan, three large boulders sit atop a hill commanding a beautiful prospect of the city of Mansehra. A low brick wall surrounds these boulders; a simple roof, mounted on four brick pillars, protects the rock faces from wind and rain. This structure preserves for posterity the words inscribed there: ‘Doing good is hard – Even beginning to do good is hard.’ The words are those of Ashoka Maurya, an Indian emperor…
Music: Omar Sosa & Yilian Canizares — ‘Sanzara’
With new Covid-19 cases hitting a high, Trump revisits his fantasy: The virus will just go away
Philip Bump writes: Over the past five months, President Trump’s approach to the coronavirus pandemic has swerved around a bit, with the president at times embracing strict controls meant to contain the virus and, at others, the urgent need to scale back those controls to boost the economy. But there’s been no more consistent message from Trump than his most defiantly optimistic one: At some point, the virus will simply disappear. Speaking to Fox Business’s Blake Burman on Wednesday, the…
Covid-19 cases rose by nearly 50 percent last month, led by states that reopened first
The Washington Post reports: Coronavirus infections in the United States surged nearly 50 percent in June as states relaxed quarantine rules and tried to reopen their economies, data compiled Wednesday showed, and several states moved to reimpose restrictions on bars and recreation. More than 800,000 new cases were reported across the country last month, led by Florida, Arizona, Texas and California — bringing the nation’s officially reported total to just over 2.6 million, according to data compiled by The Washington…
Trump would do anything for Putin. No wonder he’s ignoring the Russian bounties
Michael McFaul writes: Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to have paid Taliban rebels in Afghanistan to kill U.S. soldiers. Having resulted in at least one American death, and maybe more, these Russian bounties reportedly produced the desired outcome. While deeply disturbing, this effort by Putin is not surprising: It follows a clear pattern of ignoring international norms, rules and laws — and daring the United States to do anything about it. Putin sees the United States as his central enemy….
What Facebook and the oil industry have in common
Bill McKibben writes: Why is it so hard to get Facebook to do anything about the hate and deception that fill its pages, even when it’s clear that they are helping to destroy democracy? And why, of all things, did the company recently decide to exempt a climate-denial post from its fact-checking process? The answer is clear: Facebook’s core business is to get as many people as possible to spend as many hours as possible on its site, so that…
Facebook can’t be reformed
Charlie Warzel writes: “We know we have more work to do.” That was the line from numerous Facebook representatives last week in reaction to the #StopHateForProfit advertising boycott campaign. Intended to pressure the company to curb hate speech and misinformation, the boycott has been joined by several high-profile brands, including Unilever and Verizon, and could make a rare dent in Facebook’s ad revenue. The campaign seems to be having an effect. On Friday, Facebook announced that it would add labels…
Facebook has been profiting from Boogaloo ads promoting civil war and unrest
BuzzFeed reports: On Sunday, the @docscustomknives Instagram account placed an ad on the popular photo-sharing social network advocating that people “join the militia, fight the state.” As clips from action movies play, showing police officers being shot and killed, music blares with lyrics proclaiming, “We ain’t scared of no police / We got guns too.” As of Tuesday afternoon, the ad was still online. Several hashtags in the ad — including #Boogaloo, #BoogalooBois, and #BoogalooMemes — connect the ad to…
Gun demand is off the charts in America
Bloomberg reports: U.S. consumers are rushing to buy guns as the Covid-19 pandemic and protests over police brutality combine with U.S. presidential politics to fuel unprecedented demand. Firearm background checks compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a proxy for gun purchases, jumped to a record in June as street demonstrations spread around the U.S. That extended a surge that began in March as the coronavirus prompted lockdowns across the country. The boom is lifting the shares of gunmakers Smith…