Important | 1 | | Pandemic deaths in the world’s second-most populous nation have reached 20,000, with both mortality and infection rates rising faster than they have in three months. Cases have hit 100,000 in Delhi alone. Even so, India is reopening as the economic pain of lockdown seems untenable. And while Australia appears comparatively unscathed, state officials in Victoria have reimposed a stay-at-home order in Melbourne after the city broke its one-day record with 191 cases today. “This is not over,” said state Premier Daniel Andrews. “Pretending that it is over is not the answer.” Follow OZY’s pandemic coverage at Coronavirus Central. | |
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| 2 | | “Who are we mad at now? Ourselves? Because we should be.” That was how a Washington, D.C., activist reacted to the Independence Day weekend killing of an 11-year-old boy by a stray bullet. Across the nation, a movement sparked by police killings of Black Americans is being tempered by another death toll: dozens killed in random street violence. “You shot and killed a baby,” said Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, referring to 8-year-old Secoriea Turner. The police chief in New York City, where 65 people were shot, lamented that “a lot of people are walking around with guns.” | |
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| 3 | | Here’s your degree from the school of hard knocks. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said yesterday it’ll boot foreigners on student visas if their schools opt for online-only classes in the fall. While students could transfer to other schools with in-person instruction, they’d have to reapply for admission — and many institutions, like Harvard, are planning online-only fall sessions to slow the spread of coronavirus. Some 400,000 people have F-1 or M-1 visas affected by the policy. Also hurting will be U.S. schools, which rely heavily on $2.5 billion in annual revenue from foreign students. OZY examines how the pandemic is rattling higher education. | |
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| 4 | | While the taxpayer-funded Paycheck Protection Program did actually make loans to struggling small businesses, it also helped major companies and politically connected firms, according to a disclosure demanded by Congress. Recipients included Newsmax Media, owned by a Trump campaign donor, restaurant chain P.F. Chang’s, wealth managers and Kanye West’s apparel company. Also on the list of recipients was Grindr, the LGBT dating app valued at $620 million, which was approved for a $2 million loan. Some of the listed firms, like scooter-sharing Bird and Foundation Capital, say they never sought nor received PPP loans. | |
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| Intriguing | 1 | | Will the “Great Firewall” of China extend to Hong Kong? Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and WhatsApp have operated freely in the semi-autonomous region — until now. Following a new security law imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing last week, social media companies paused all government requests for user data as they examine the ramifications of the law and its effect on human rights, with Twitter emphasizing it’s “committed to protecting the people using our service and their freedom of expression.” Meanwhile Hongkongers are scrubbing their accounts of pro-democracy content in fear of a backlash from China. | |
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| 2 | | “You can’t get very close, OK?” While such a cautionary statement wouldn’t be surprising from many officials these days, from Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s pandemic-scoffing, supporter-hugging president, his citing the “recommendation for everyone” is a departure. What’s changed in the second-most infected nation on Earth, where more than 65,000 people have died? Brazilian media reported that Bolsonaro’s had symptoms, like a fever, and just got tested for COVID-19. What he told the distanced media, however, was that he’d gotten a “lung screening, and my lung is clean, OK?” Read OZY’s Butterfly Effect on which governments we should be listening to. | |
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| 3 | | It’s a powerful statement, but doesn’t it hurt? Shock is the reaction that Alfredo Meschi is looking for. His aim is to convey his own revulsion about the 40,000 land and sea creatures that he says are killed every second for human consumption, OZY reports. A prominent Italian artist and activist, Meschi has 40,000 X’s tattooed all over his body, which he displays in public places to demonstrate “that holocaust on my skin.” But there’s a downside to extreme activism of this sort, says fellow vegan Giulia Zimei: “People might think that we are some wacky persons.” | |
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| 4 | | He didn’t need a deal with the devil. Yet Daniels’ six-decade career is encapsulated for many in the rollicking 1979 Grammy-winner “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” The North Carolina native, who died Monday of a hemorrhagic stroke, defied convention with a career in which he recorded with Bob Dylan and Ringo Starr and wrote songs for Elvis Presley and Tammy Wynette while bridging the blues/country/Southern rock divide. Daniels was also an outspoken conservative activist and advocate for American veterans. Singer-songwriter Aaron Watson posted one of numerous tributes, predicting “lots more fiddlin’ in heaven.” | |
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| 5 | | He saved his quarterbacking for Monday. President Trump returned to the sports racism arena yesterday, tweeting that NASCAR’s only Black driver should apologize for a “HOAX” after the noose found in Bubba Wallace’s garage turned out to have been there for months. Trump also falsely claimed NASCAR’s ban on Confederate flags had caused its “lowest ratings EVER.” Wallace encouraged fans to respond to “hate being thrown at you with LOVE!” Trump also defended Native American-themed NFL and MLB teams as being named “out of STRENGTH,” complaining they were being changed “to be politically correct.” A new OZY TV show takes on racism. | |
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