PHOTO: NICOLE NERI FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
“On the anniversary of George Floyd’s killing, debate about race reaches across American life. One year on, the country remains roiled by a broad and deep debate about race that is playing out in classrooms and boardrooms, in communities and at dinner tables and in sports, Hollywood and Washington, D.C.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“One year ago, George Floyd was murdered at the hands of police , a day that sparked protests for social justice worldwide. Floyd, 46, died on May 25, 2020, after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into his neck for more than nine minutes. To millions around the world, the final minutes of Floyd’s life unleashed months of protests worldwide against police brutality and systemic racism. But for those closest to Floyd, his death was a theft: the abrupt loss of a friend and confidant. The one-year mark of his murder will be observed with a block party in the Houston housing projects where he grew up.” Read more at USA Today
“One year after the murder of George Floyd, President Joe Biden hoped to have signed police reform legislation. But the anniversary of Floyd’s murder will go without lawmakers on Capitol Hill coming to a deal to pass legislation that is named in Floyd’s honor. The White House has downplayed the delay of the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act being passed by the one-year mark of Floyd's death, a deadline that Biden himself set. Instead of focusing on the talks, the president will commemorate Floyd's death with his relatives, who will visit the White House in a private meeting.” Read more at USA Today
“Ryanair's CEO is accusing Belarus of hijacking a flight from Athens to Lithuania.
The Ryanair flight, which was carrying leading Belarusian opposition activist Roman Protasevich, was diverted while in Belarusian airspace and forced to land, with air traffic controllers citing a security threat on board. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko sent a military jet to ground the plane. No threat was found and Protasevich, who was living abroad, was detained by authorities. Ryanair's CEO, Michael O’Leary, called it a state-sponsored hijacking and also suggested that Belarusian secret service agents were onboard the flight. Protasevich, 26 years old, was pressured to leave Belarus in 2019 and has led an opposition channel on the messaging app Telegram that became one of the country’s most reliable sources of independent information and live news videos. Belarus claimed to have received an email from Gaza’s governing militant group, Hamas, claiming it had planted a bomb on board, an explanation German Chancellor Angela Merkel dismissed as ‘completely implausible.’ In response, European Union leaders have banned Belarus's airlines from entering EU airspace and called on EU airlines to avoid flying over Belarus. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the Biden administration was demanding an independent investigation into the incident. ‘Diverting a flight between two EU member states for the apparent purpose of arresting a journalist constitutes a brazen affront to international peace and security by the [Lukashenko] regime,’ Ms. Psaki said.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“World Health Organization scientists investigating the origins of Covid-19 have zeroed in on previously overlooked data on the extensive screening of animals for coronavirus around the time the pandemic erupted. They hope that by further studying this and other areas of renewed interest, they can get a clearer picture of China's evolving knowledge of the virus and the likely timing of its emergence. Meanwhile, young people in the US -- that’s those 24 and under -- are lagging in Covid-19 vaccinations. US health officials warn that, while young people may be at lower risk of dying from Covid-19, they could still face long-term effects.” Read more at CNN
“The Justice Department late Monday night released part of a key internal document used in 2019 to justify not charging President Donald Trump with obstruction, but also signaled it would fight a judge’s effort to make the entire document public.
The filing comes after a federal judge excoriated former U.S. attorney general William P. Barr — and the Justice Department more broadly — for their explanations of how and why it decided not to pursue a criminal case against Trump over possible obstruction of the investigation by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.
The Justice Department filing is likely to both fuel and frustrate Trump’s biggest critics, particularly Democrats who have long argued that Barr stage-managed an exoneration of Trump after Mueller submitted a 448-page report into his findings about his investigation into whether the 2016 Trump campaign conspired with Russia to interfere in the election, and whether Trump tried to obstruct that investigation.
The central document at issue is a March 2019 memo written by two senior Justice Department officials arguing that aside from important constitutional reasons not to accuse the president of a crime, the evidence gathered by Mueller did not rise to the level of a prosecutable case, even if Trump were not president.
Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued a scathing opinion saying that she had read the memo and that it showed that Barr was disingenuous when he cited the document as key to his conclusion that Trump had not broken the law.
She also accused department lawyers of misleading her about the internal discussions that surrounded the memo and ordered the memo be released, though she gave the government several weeks to decide whether to appeal.
As that deadline neared, the government filed papers seeking both to appeal the ruling and to appease the court by offering a partially unredacted version of the document — making the first two pages public, while filing an appeal to try to keep the other half-dozen pages secret.” Read more at Washington Post
“ATLANTA (AP) — Six months after Donald Trump’s loss, conspiracy theorists and Trump backers are continuing their push for repeated examinations of ballots and finding limited successes.
A Georgia judge last week awarded a group the chance to review mail ballots in a large Georgia county that includes Atlanta. Officials in a rural Michigan county have expressed interest in a review of their voting machines. A similar debate has caused sharp divisions in a New Hampshire town. In some cases, the efforts have been inspired by an audit of the votes in Arizona’s Maricopa County, an elaborate exercise engineered by the GOP-led state Senate.
The efforts are unlikely to yield any new revelations about President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. The votes have been counted — and often recounted — and certified by local officials. Still, the lingering debate and legal wrangling have propelled suspicions and advanced debunked theories. And their sometimes misleading conclusions have been amplified by Trump, whose false allegations of election fraud sparked the push.” Read more at AP News
“Florida will fine social media companies that permanently bar political candidates, a response to Facebook’s and Twitter’s suspensions of Donald Trump.” Read more at New York Times
“Donald McGahn, who was Trump’s White House counsel, will probably testify about the Russia inquiry next week.” Read more at New York Times
“The state of Georgia has tried to find a compromise to change Stone Mountain, a tourist attraction depicting Confederate leaders. Few people seem happy.” Read more at New York Times
A team of scientists announced Monday that they had partially restored the sight of a blind man by building light-catching proteins in one of his eyes.STOCK.ADOBE.COM
“A team of scientists announced Monday that they had partially restored the sight of a blind man by building light-catching proteins in one of his eyes. Their report, which appeared in the journal Nature Medicine, is the first published study to describe the successful use of this treatment.
The procedure is a far cry from full vision. The volunteer, a 58-year-old man who lives in France, had to wear special goggles that gave him the ghostly perception of objects in a narrow field of view. But the authors of the report say that the trial — the result of 13 years of work — is a proof of concept for more effective treatments to come.” Read more at Boston Globe
“U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Israel on the first leg of a hastily announced tour of the Middle East. Cynics might wonder why now.
The cease-fire reached last week between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that runs the Gaza Strip, is holding. Blinken will also meet with the rival Palestinian Authority leadership in the West Bank before moving on to Jordan and Egypt, which helped mediate the truce while the U.S. held back.
Announcing his decision to send Blinken to the region, President Joe Biden said his envoy will convey ‘our ironclad commitment to Israel’s security’ and continue the administration’s efforts to rebuild ties and support for the Palestinians.
But there are likely to be additional reasons for Blinken’s diplomatic efforts.
Chief among them is the acceleration in the push for a breakthrough in reconstituting the Iran nuclear accord that the U.S. unilaterally abandoned under Donald Trump.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lobbied hard against the 2015 deal and routinely describes Tehran as Israel’s greatest threat. The U.S. is keen to temper his objections this time around.
Then there’s China’s role in the region. President Xi Jinping spoke with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani yesterday to offer his support for Tehran’s ‘reasonable demands’ on nuclear matters. They also discussed expanding Iran’s oil sales and other exports to China. That’s after China and Iran signed a 25-year deal in March with oil at its core.
With China making itself felt in the Middle East, there are plenty of reasons for Blinken to show a U.S. presence. And much to discuss in Jerusalem, Ramallah, Cairo and Amman.” — Alan Crawford Read more at Bloomberg
Blinken arriving in Israel today.
Photographer: Alex Brandon/AFP/Getty Images
“Myanmar’s military junta has imprisoned more than 30 poets since the Feb. 1 coup.” Read more at New York Times
“Lives Lived: Ruth Freitag, who worked at the Library of Congress for nearly 50 years, was a librarian to the stars. Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov and others sought out her encyclopedic knowledge of scientific resources. She died at 96.” Read more at New York Times
“China rejects COVID-19 origins story. Chinese authorities have rejected a Wall Street Journal report that cited U.S. intelligence claims that a number of workers at Wuhan’s virus laboratory were hospitalized weeks before the first COVID-19 case was reported in the city. The report said that lab workers became ill ‘with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illness.’ Chinese Foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian dismissed the report as ‘completely untrue’ and suggested the United States was attempting to deflect attention from its own failings. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the intelligence report was provided by a third country and needed more information before it could be verified.
The report comes as the World Health Organization begins discussions on how to continue to investigate the origins of the virus. A WHO investigative team who visited Wuhan in February deemed the lab leak theory as ‘extremely unlikely’ and maintain that the first human transmission likely came from bats.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Aung San Suu Kyi appears in court. Images of Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s de facto leader before a Feb. 1 military coup, appeared on Monday for the first time since the military takeover. State television showed her in court seated beside ousted President Win Myint and former Naypyidaw Mayor Myo Aung. Aung San Suu Kyi appeared in good health and has largely been kept in the dark regarding developments in the country, her legal team said.
Coup leader Min Aung Hlaing gave his first interview to foreign media on Monday, also confirming that Aung San Suu Kyi was in good health. Speaking to Hong Kong-based Phoenix Television, the junta leader said 300 people had been killed in the months since Feb. 1. Opposition groups say that the true death toll is above 800.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Climate displacement. The number of people internally displaced by climate disasters in 2020 was more than three times higher than those displaced by conflict and violence, new figures from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center show. An estimated 30.7 million people migrated domestically due to extreme weather events in 2020 out of a total of 55 million internally displaced people, the report found. China, the Philippines, India, and Bangladesh were the worst affected by extreme weather. The United States was the next most affected in fifth place, as 1.7 million people were forced to move due to climate disasters in 2020.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Tokyo’s Olympic hopes. The U.S. State Department has advised its citizens not to travel to Japan, as the country faces a fresh COVID-19 outbreak just two months before Tokyo is set to host the Olympics. Foreign spectators were already banned from attending, but the move comes as domestic support for hosting the Olympics is already near rock bottom: A poll released last week found that 83 percent of those surveyed said they did not want Tokyo to host the Games.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“U.S.-Ethiopia ties. Ethiopia’s foreign ministry said the country may be ‘forced to reassess its relations with the United States’ after Washington announced restrictions on economic aid and security assistance over reports of human rights abuses during the conflict in Tigray. Ethiopia accused the United States of attempting to ‘meddle in its internal affairs,’ something that ‘is not only inappropriate but also completely unacceptable.’ Speaking on Sunday. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the restrictions were applied to force a resolution between the warring parties.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Targeting Twitter | Indian police visited Twitter’s offices last night after the company decided to label tweets from accounts associated with the ruling party as manipulated media, a source says. Kurt Wagner reports the police action followed complaints by the main opposition Congress party that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party posted forged documents linking it to criticism of his government’s handling of the pandemic.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Going it alone | Cuba is taking a high-risk gamble that it can solve a worsening Covid-19 crisis itself, with vaccines made by local labs. The communist nation is inoculating hundreds of thousands with the shots even as they’re still being tested, and hasn’t reached out to third parties — such as the global Covax program — seeking vaccines being used elsewhere.” Read more at Bloomberg
“An investigation is underway on Tuesday after a package containing white powder was sent to the Kentucky home of Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. The FBI's Louisville office ‘is working with the Warren County Sheriff's Office by providing forensic and technical support for this investigation,’ agency spokesman Tim Beam told the Louisville Courier Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network. Capitol Hill police are also involved in the investigation, according to Politico, which first reported the news. ‘I take these threats immensely seriously,’ Paul wrote on Twitter on Monday.” Read more at USA Today
“Here comes hybrid work. Companies are laying down new rules and setting expectations for hybrid work as some workers return to the office. Mandatory Mondays and Fridays, unused desks and crowded conference rooms—there's a lot to navigate.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“61% — The percentage of New York City public-school students who are still taking classes remotely. Mayor Bill de Blasio said the nation's largest public-school district won't be offering remote learning in the fall and classes will be fully in-person.
21 — The number of athletes who died from exposure after a freak storm hit a remote region of China where they were taking part in a 60-mile mountain race. The storm killed some of the country's top trail runners and has raised new questions about the safety of mountain races, which have become an economic-development driver for some local governments.
80% — The estimated share of Olympic athletes and officials who are set to be vaccinated, according to the competition's organizers. As the date for the Games in Tokyo draws closer, a growing chorus of business leaders in Japan, including SoftBank's Masayoshi Son, say that the country should cancel the competition to prevent a surge of Covid-19 infections. A recent poll found 83% of people in Japan wanted the event to be canceled or postponed.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
Elliot Page's summer is going swimmingly.
The 34-year-old Oscar nominated actor, who came out as transgender last December in a social media post, celebrated a new milestone on Instagram: ‘Trans bb's first swim trunks.’
Page posted a poolside photo of himself soaking in the sun on Monday, marking the first shirtless photo he's shared since undergoing ‘life-changing’ and ‘lifesaving’ top surgery, a procedure to remove breast tissue for transgender men, according to Mayo Clinic.
Page showcases his rock-hard abs in red swim trunks, a blue baseball cap and aviator sunglasses, but the real showstopper is his radiating smile. He captioned his photo with the hashtags #transjoy and #transisbeautiful….Read more at USA Today
Gymnastics’ scoring system may not fully value the vault Simone Biles pulled off Saturday.Credit...Emilee Chinn/Getty Images
“INDIANAPOLIS — Simone Biles, the most decorated gymnast in history, is renowned for performing moves so difficult, and so distinctive, that several have been named after her.
On Saturday, she executed a new one considered so dangerous that no other women even attempt it.
Her latest signature skill is called a Yurchenko double pike. Biles attempted it in competition for the first time on Saturday night at the U.S. Classic, her first competition in 18 months.
Biles had unveiled the vault, a stunning feat of power, physics and fearlessness traditionally only attempted by men, a day earlier, in a video from a practice that quickly went viral.
The Yurchenko double pike is considered so perilous and challenging that no other woman has attempted it in competition, and it is unlikely that any woman in the world is even training to give it a try. To execute it, a gymnast first must launch herself into a roundoff back handspring onto the vaulting table, and then propel herself high enough to give herself time to flip twice in a pike position (body folded, legs straight) before landing on her feet.
It’s the kind of maneuver done much more easily by a platform diver who has the help of gravity and the safety of a soft landing. Biles, though, executes it by producing enough speed and strength to power herself high in the air and then flip so quickly on the way down that gravity seems to have been taken by surprise. Others were too.
Not even the vault’s namesake, the former Russian gymnast Natalia Yurchenko, tried it in competition. (The double pike carries Yurchenko’s name because she pioneered the roundoff-back-handspring approach to the vault, not what Biles now can do after pressing off it.)
Biles performed the vault so well on Saturday that her one flaw, somehow, was over-rotating it. That meant she needed to take a few steps back on her landing to stop her momentum.” Read more at New York Times