“America is at a crossroads as the nation confronts a new surge of the coronavirus, but only slowly embraces the vaccines that could stop it.
With about only half of the population fully vaccinated, the country is facing what federal health officials have called a ‘pivotal point’ in the pandemic. Some Americans who have been hesitant to roll up their sleeves for a shot — not because they oppose vaccinations, but because they are reluctant, anxious or procrastinators — are finally doing so. How many people ultimately join this group, and how quickly, could determine the course of the pandemic in the U.S.
One of the hurdles to vaccination efforts has been the spread of misinformation. An osteopathic physician in Florida spreads more coronavirus misinformation online than anyone, researchers say. He makes millions doing it.
Vaccines remain effective against the worst outcomes of Covid-19, including from the highly contagious Delta variant. But Biden administration health officials increasingly think people who are 65 and older or who have compromised immune systems will need booster shots.” Read more at New York Times
Chase Kalisz won the men’s 400 individual medley.Doug Mills/The New York Times
“The Olympics get rolling.
The swimmer Chase Kalisz became the first American to win a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics. The U.S. women’s soccer team bounced back with a ‘ruthless’ 6-1 victory over New Zealand. Skateboarding and the gymnastic qualifiers got underway; swimming will dominate the first week of the Games. Here’s a recap of the action on Day 1 in Tokyo.
Simone Biles, the greatest gymnast of all time, arrives at her second Olympics prepared to soar above the sport’s devastating recent history. ‘Biles, 24, has been compared to Serena Williams, Tom Brady and Tiger Woods,’ our gymnastics reporter writes. ‘But the analogy minimizes her athletic brilliance because those competitors lose from time to time — and she doesn’t.’ Read more at New York Times
A crew from Santa Fe, N.M., checking for hot spots and smoldering debris near Paisley, Ore.Kristina Barker for The New York Times
“Times journalists were on the ground at the edge of the Bootleg Fire in Oregon, the largest active wildfire in the country. It looked as if the earth was roasting.
Hundreds of firefighters from many states have struggled to beat back a blaze that has burned more than 400,000 acres. As of Saturday, it was only 42 percent contained. The fire, made worse by drought, is one of the many stark examples of the impact of climate change.
As if the recent record-breaking temperatures weren’t punishing enough, the forecast for the coming week suggests that there will be few places in the contiguous U.S. to find relief. Extreme heat will be the product of a ‘heat dome,’ much like the one that oppressed the Pacific Northwest this summer.” Read more at New York Times
“House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said it's her ‘plan’ to appoint GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger to the House select committee to investigate January 6, just days after the GOP walked out on the panel.
‘That would be my plan,’ she said when asked by ABC's George Stephanopoulos if she wanted to add him. CNN reported last week that Pelosi was eyeing Kinzinger to bolster the panel.
Kinzinger, a vocal Republican critic of Trump who was one of 10 House Republicans to vote for his second impeachment, would join Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming as the only Republicans on the new select committee.” Read more at CNN
Rodney Alcala at Manhattan Supreme Court in 2012. Mr. Alcala, who appeared in a 1978 episode of ‘The Dating Game,’ was convicted in seven murders.Credit...Pool photo by Jefferson Siegel
“Rodney Alcala, who was known as the ‘Dating Game Killer’ and was convicted in the murders of six women and one girl in the 1970s, died on Saturday at a hospital in Kings County, Calif. He was 77.
Mr. Alcala, who was on California’s death row, died of natural causes, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
A longhaired photographer who lured women by offering to take their pictures, Mr. Alcala was convicted of killing a 12-year-old girl and four women in Orange County, Calif., and two women in New York, all between 1971 and 1979, the authorities said.
Investigators had also suspected him of, or had linked him to, other murders in Los Angeles, Seattle, Arizona, New Hampshire and Marin County, Calif., the department said.” Read more at New York Times
“WASHINGTON — A plan by Democrats to pay for infrastructure investments by beefing up the Internal Revenue Service to catch tax evaders has resurfaced old resentments for Republicans, whose distrust of the agency has simmered for years, erasing hopes of a bipartisan legislative accord built on narrowing the so-called tax gap.
Republican senators backed away this week from a provision to toughen tax enforcement at the I.R.S., gutting a crucial source of financing for an infrastructure package that would devote about $600 billion to roads, bridges, broadband and other public goods. That has left lawmakers scrambling to figure out how to pay for the legislation and has again put the I.R.S., whose funding and ability to conduct audits has diminished over the past decade, in limbo.
For conservative activists, who have harbored enmity toward the I.R.S. for more than a decade, the agency is considered a threat that is beyond reclamation.
‘As we learned in 2013, Democrats have weaponized the I.R.S. as a political tool, and now they want an even more powerful I.R.S. to target their political enemies just as they did under Obama,’ said David McIntosh, the president of the Club for Growth, a free-enterprise advocacy group. ‘Their proposal is not cost effective even by optimistic estimates and it’s just another example of the vicious tactics of the radical socialist left.’
The enforcement provision that had been under consideration in the bipartisan plan was already slimmed down from what the Biden administration had originally proposed, which would give the I.R.S. an additional $80 billion and include much more rigorous financial reporting to help crack down on tax evasion. The White House estimates that its proposal could yield as much as $700 billion over 10 years. Bipartisan lawmakers were considering a smaller plan, which would give the I.R.S. $40 billion with the aim of bringing in $140 billion in unpaid tax revenue. That proposal would not have included more robust reporting requirements, which Republicans have criticized as government overreach and an invasion of privacy.
Republicans, in theory, support measures to curb tax evasion but not if it means showering cash on the I.R.S. and doubling the size of its staff, as the Biden administration has proposed.
The tax collection agency was never particularly popular with Republicans, who tend to embrace small government and low taxes. But their animus toward the I.R.S. became more impassioned in 2010, after Democrats and the Obama administration used it as a tool for enforcing the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that everyone buy health insurance. Republicans eventually repealed the tax penalty that enforced the mandate in 2017, but the health law remains in place.
The I.R.S. came under fire for its aggressive questioning of conservative groups in 2013. After a surge in applications for tax-exempt status from 2010 to 2012, the agency acknowledged that it began singling out terms such as ‘Tea Party’ and ‘patriot’ as a shortcut for determining if organizations were engaging in social welfare, which would qualify them for tax-exempt status, or if they might be political organizations.
That year, Lois Lerner, the director of the I.R.S. division that oversees tax-exempt groups, apologized for making mistakes and exercising poor judgment. Mr. Obama later demanded the resignation of the acting I.R.S. commissioner, Steven T. Miller, and said that the agency’s actions were ‘inexcusable.’
Republicans never let the matter go. By 2015, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who was seeking the Republican presidential nomination, called for the I.R.S. to be abolished.
A 2017 report from the Treasury inspector general found that the I.R.S. was also inappropriately targeting progressive-leaning groups, flagging words such as ‘progressive,’ ‘occupy’ and ‘green energy.’” Read more at New York Times
“Donald Trump and the crude, hostile rallying cries against immigrants that powered his rise have vacated the White House — but his message hasn’tgone out of style.
As they gear up for key races in 2022 and 2024, many Republicans have adopted the ex-president’s rhetoric in his absence, stoking racial and ethnic anxieties over immigration and blaming President Biden for what they paint as dystopian and dangerous conditions at the US-Mexico border that they say are threatening the interior.” Read more at Boston Globe
“President Biden has assembled the most aggressive antitrust team in decades as he prepares to take on corporate titans.
The team includes three legal crusaders — Jonathan Kanter, Lina Khan and Tim Wu — who have spent their careers challenging corporate consolidation and Big Tech. The appointments show both the Democratic Party’s renewed antitrust activism and the Biden administration’s growing concern that Big Tech’s power has hurt consumers and stunted economic growth.
Social media’s impact may be everlasting. Determining what to do with our data after we die may be one of the great ethical and technological imperatives of our time.” Read more at New York Times
Campers picked teams before playing football at Timber Lake Camp in Shandaken, N.Y. on Friday.Bryan Anselm for The New York Times
“The latest victim of the tight job market: s’mores and singalongs at summer camp.
Some parents are being asked to pick up their campers as summer camps struggle to reopen amid labor shortages and without the international seasonal workers. Some camp directors complain that hired staff members are failing to show up or leaving their jobs without notice. And some counselors say that they are underpaid and stretched thinner than in past years. A few camps have even been forced to close.
Millions of families with children started receiving a little extra cash this month because of an expanded child tax credit. For tax purposes, there may be reasons for some families to decline the money, for now.” Read more at New York Times
Evidence of oil spills and pollution in the water of the Niger Delta in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, in 2018.Ron Bousso/Reuters
“Big Oil has made billions in profits in the vast Niger Delta regionfrom decades of extraction. Now some companies are pulling out — and leaving a mess behind.
Environmentalists say companies like Chevron often leave without decommissioning their aging infrastructure, which is done to restore the environment and prevent leaching. Today, the delicate ecosystem of the Niger Delta is one of the most polluted places on the planet. Now hundreds of women, who do most of the fishing in the creeks and marshes, are trying to call the oil companies to account.” Read more at New York Times
Thousands of marchers at the annual Pride parade in Budapest on Saturday.Janos Kummer/Getty Images
“Thousands of Hungarians marched through Budapest to defy Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s efforts to marginalize Hungary’s L.G.B.T.Q. community.
This year’s Budapest Pride march on Saturday was partly a celebration, but it was also a protest, its organizers said, against a recently passed law that critics say equates homosexuality with pedophilia and places limits on sexual education. Many participants said that the law was another alarming sign of Hungary’s slide toward authoritarianism under Orban.
Elsewhere in Europe, the government in Spain promised in 2015 to grant citizenship to the descendants of Sephardic Jews expelled during the Spanish Inquisition. But a wave of more than 3,000 rejections in recent months is raising questions about how serious Spain is about its promise of reparations to correct one of the darkest chapters of its history.” Read more at New York Times
Siblings Raven and Arthur reunite in the wild after their trek from captivity.Alana Paterson for The New York Times
“Former President Trump on Saturday hailed the Arizona state Senate for its ongoing audit of the 2020 election in Maricopa County during a rally in Phoenix, while taking shots at Gov. Doug Ducey (R).
Speaking to a crowd of supporters at the event dubbed the ‘Rally for Election Integrity,’ Trump began by thanking the ‘brave and unyielding conservative warriors in the Arizona State Senate’ for forging ahead with the audit.
The former president recognized the appearance of several GOP state senators, particularly thanking Arizona Senate President Karen Fann (R), who has overseen the effort that began in December.” Read more at The Hill
“For the first time, astronomers detected moons forming around a distant exoplanet — a finding that will help scientists address how planets and moons form.” Read more at New York Time
“Two decades after the draft sequence of the human genome was unveiled to great fanfare, a team of 99 scientists has finally deciphered the entire thing.” Read more at New York Times
“Cockatoos in Sydney, Australia, invented a technique for opening trash bins. As one bird learned from another, the skill spread quickly through the suburbs like a new dance move.” Read more at New York Times
“Jury selection begins Monday in the federal trial of four former Minneapolis police officers in the death of George Floyd. The federal grand jury indicted the officers in May, alleging they violated Floyd's constitutional rights.” Read more at CNN
“Suspects in the shooting of Lady Gaga's dog walker will have a preliminary court hearing on Monday. They are charged with attempted murder in the shooting of Ryan Fischer and the theft of two of the singer's French bulldogs.” Read more at CNN
“Actor Cuba Gooding Jr.'s next court appearance is Tuesday in his groping trial. Gooding pleaded not guilty to forcible touching and sexual abuse charges linked to several incidents in New York.” Read more at CNN
“Despite rising coronavirus cases, the Lollapalooza music festival starts Thursday in Chicago. Attendees of the four-day event must have proof of Covid-19 vaccination or a negative test. The FBI has warned against using fake vaccine cards.” Read more at CNN
“The federal ban on evictions is set to expire Saturday. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has extended the moratorium several times, bringing relief to millions of struggling renters. Landlords have said the eviction ban puts a burden on property owners.” Read more at CNN
“Jackie Mason, a rabbi-turned-comedian whose feisty brand of standup comedy led him to Catskills nightclubs, West Coast talk shows and Broadway stages, has died. He was 93.
Mason died Saturday at 6 p.m. ET at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Manhattan after being hospitalized for over two weeks, the celebrity lawyer Raoul Felder told The Associated Press.
The irascible Mason was known for his sharp wit and piercing social commentary, often about being Jewish, men and women and his own inadequacies. His typical style was amused outrage.” Read more at USA Today
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