A quarantine project that’s a win for you, your garden and pollinators: A bee house

will arrive. “Absolutely,” Ramsey says. “Every single year.” An organization formed to help pollinators, Pollinator Partnership, gives a plan for a homemade bee hotel on its website, pollinator.org. These insects pose little or no threat to people. Even the ones with effective stingers don’t have the nest-defending aggression of social species such as honeybees or yellowjackets, experts say. Ultimately, the bee houses may be more for our benefit than the bees’, because these creatures are around anyway. Droege says an acre of land can support an estimated 25,000 individual bees annually. Bee houses are a small part of what you can do. The best way to harbor wild bees is to garden with them in mind, which is to say avoid using pesticides, plant lots of herbaceous perennials and grasses, and let fallen branches lie to give these insects the sort of natural habitat they used long before bee houses were dreamed up. Don’t be too tidy. In her garden in Omaha, Hopwood cuts back her perennials and grasses in winter at six to eight inches above the ground. This leaves old, hollow stems standing that the bees will use during the spring. Ironweed, Joe Pye weed and the aptly named bee balm are all good perennials for this use, she says. The new spring growth of the perennials will soon hide the old stalks. Some ecological gardeners will leave top growth after it fades in October, but Droege says this is of little value to wild bees unless the stems have been damaged or cut, so they can gain access. “I tell people, cut everything off at a foot in the fall, and then you have got a whole source of open stems for bees to choose next year,” he says. Many bee species rely on specific native plants for their pollen needs, so the gardener should consider planting those for them. These would include native willows and dogwoods and plants within the daisy family, such as asters, rudbeckias and goldenrods. By welcoming all wild bees, we get a practical benefit: They are good at pollinating garden plants, so we get fruit and vegetables and seeds and berries. But placing a bee house by the kitchen window and observing these creatures, even when one species preys on another, simply adds to our understanding of nature. “There’s just no downside to opening up our world,” Hopwood says. @adrian_higgins on Twitter


Europe is mulling a ban on American travelers. Have we ‘transitioned to greatness’ yet?

manage a public health crisis that has now claimed over 120,000 American lives, with cases again rising in at least half of states. Obviously, there are other systemic reasons that our response has been so hampered. But Trump’s authoritarian mind-set — his absolute faith in his magical ability to brush aside science and empiricism to bend reality to his will, and his corrupt prioritization of his own interests and the (perceived) interests of his parts of the country over those of the full democratic polity — have been the overarching cause. That generally lumps us into a category with Russia and Brazil, and puts us at odds with our Western allies. This arguably runs deep. As Laura K. Field chronicles, Trump-friendly thinkers have concocted an intellectual rationale for his approach that recasts him as a kind of heroic resister of enlightenment liberalism’s supposed overreliance on science, while in the process badly distorting the true nature and value of our inheritance from that tradition. Trump may not be aware of this line of illiberal thinking, but he is its vessel, and he is very much putting it into practice, with utterly catastrophic consequences that are all around us. In light of all this, it’s also worth noting a crowning irony. Recall that Trump had previously banned travel from the E.U. back in March, when coronavirus cases were soaring in Europe and the virus was only beginning to spread seriously here. Notably, Trump explicitly criticized Europe at the time for not taking the gloriously brave step he did in banning travel from China, and blamed Europe for having “seeded” the virus in the United States. Now, however, the situation is reversed: Trump’s heroic ban on travel from China did nothing to stop the spread of coronavirus here, which Trump allowed to rampage out of control due to weeks of depraved negligence. And now cases are again spiking here — even as Europe has the virus far more under control. Maybe all this is what Trump means by “transition to greatness”? Read more The Post’s View: Wearing a mask is not a political statement. It’s crucial to beating this pandemic. Jennifer Rubin: How the Republican Party became a death cult Michael Gerson: Trump has raised the white flag in the ﬁght against covid-19 Catherine Rampell: The U.S. is falling behind its peers. Americans — if not their leaders — are starting to notice.


We’ve reached peak daylight. Here’s a guide to the 2020 summer solstice.

After our long stay-at-home spring, it’s time to welcome summer. Saturday is the summer solstice, our longest day of the year and the first day of astronomical summer in the Northern Hemisphere. Thanks to 2020 being a leap year, this year’s solstice arrives June 20 at 5:43 p.m. eastern time, about a day earlier than usual. It also happens to coincide with another rare celestial event: an annular “ring of fire” solar eclipse will darken the sun on the first day of summer across parts of Africa and Asia. While the eclipse won’t be visible in North America, a few sites will be streaming it live. Similar to the eclipse, Saturday’s solstice is a fleeting astronomical event. Technically, the solstice isn’t a full calendar day. It’s actually a precise moment when the sun appears directly over the Tropic of Cancer, a circle of latitude 23.5 degrees north of Earth’s equator. It’s as far north as the sun ever gets before starting its six-month journey southward again. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, we see our greatest amount of daylight. And if you live north of the Tropic of Cancer, the sun takes its longest and highest path through the sky. The reason we have solstices, and seasons, is because the Earth doesn’t orbit the sun completely upright. Instead, our planet is tilted on its axis about 23.5 degrees, which means one hemisphere receives more direct sunlight than the other at different times of year. On the June solstice, the Northern Hemisphere leans most toward the sun, giving us the most intense sunlight and longest days of the year. It’s the opposite down under, where places in the Southern Hemisphere are kicking off winter and their shortest day of the year. The number of daylight hours you’ll see today depends on how far you live from the equator. The farther north you are, the longer the sun is up. The map below, created by climatologist Brian Brettschneider, shows daylight on the summer solstice ranges from less than 14 hours in parts of Florida and southern Texas to more than 16 hours in northern Montana, North Dakota and Minnesota. Washington, D.C., enjoys 14 hours and 54 minutes of daylight Saturday, with sunrise at 5:42 a.m. and sunset at 8:36 p.m., according to timeanddate.com. Our latest sunset of the year - at 8:37 p.m. - comes June 27. Places farther north will see the


Cultural institutions reopen with a more hands-off approach

sharks. On the plus side, the event space was converted into an open-air photo studio where guests can snap selfies with Tango, the loggerhead turtle, and other aquarium celebs. It also expanded the space inhabited by the penguins and baby alligators. “Does the experience match what you had before?” asked Roger Germann, the aquarium’s president and chief executive. “You can see the penguins in a more intimate space.” The John Ball Zoo in Grand Rapids, Mich., opened its 110-acre attraction this month but with restrictions. Several indoor attractions (aquarium, tropics building) and diversions with high touch points (petting zoo, ropes course) are limiting the number of guests to 40 for all but the ropes course. (No more than 10 people for the swinging set.) The zip-line is off-limits. To maintain a 36-foot bubble around each visitor, the zoo is allowing only 1,200 people to be on-site at one time. “We are creating a safe space for our animals, visitors and staff, and eliminating touch points,” said Peter D’Arienzo, the chief executive. To discourage crowding, the zoo will forgo scheduled animal encounters for impromptu programming. “We’re still going to do the otter feedings,” he said. “We’re just not going to publish it.” Face coverings are encouraged, and if you forget yours, the zoo has some spare surgical masks from the animal hospital. For food, visitors can grab a meal from the takeout counter or order online and have it delivered anywhere on the property — well, almost anywhere. Fossil Rim Wildlife Center At the Museum of Illusions in New York City, guests use their eyes, ears and minds more than their hands. Out of 67 exhibits in a half-dozen rooms, 10 involve touching an object or surface, according to Renne Gjoni, the museum’s chief executive. For three illusions, visitors use a pencil to complete the trick, such as comparing the lengths of two triangles. The museum will remove the pencil and ask guests to use their own writing implement or cellphone. Floor decals will help visitors stand safely apart while waiting to enter, say, the Ames Room (one person looks gigantic, the other appears teeny) or Infinity Room (mirrored reflections ad infinitum). All of the rooms are ventilated, and automatic hand sanitizers are standing at the ready. When the museum reopens on July 20, selfies will capture one non-illusion: masked faces. The Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle is highly interactive,


Congo declares end of world’s second-largest Ebola outbreak

challenging theater for the contact tracing and community outreach required during an Ebola outbreak. Armed groups have killed hundreds of locals in numerous regional conflicts since the outbreak began, and health workers often came under fire while doing their work. Front-line nurses were routinely evacuated from particularly volatile areas, leaving the response on pause and the virus more free to spread. One deadly stretch late last November saw four people involved in the response killed in attacks by unknown assailants. Overall 11 were killed and 86 injured, according to the WHO. The broader humanitarian situation has worsened as well. The number of people in need of aid in the two Ebola-affected provinces has grown more than 250 percent since the start of the outbreak, from 1.2 to 4.3 million people, according to the International Rescue Committee, which has worked closely with the Ebola response. Eastern Congo has not seen a large number of coronavirus cases, but Congo at large has not escaped the new pandemic. “Initial research indicates that covid-19, which continues to spread with nearly 6,000 cases [across the country], could compound these devastating consequences for the most vulnerable populations,” said Borry Jatta, the organization’s Ebola response director. Eteni Longondo, Congo’s health minister, said in a news conference on Thursday that tackling the coronavirus would require “the same strategy in the struggle, the same methodology in the struggle” against Ebola. Despite the hurdles, a well-financed global response was able to make use of several experimental vaccines and treatments, which were credited with helping slow the virus’s spread while a cure remains elusive. Different strains of the virus exist, and different outbreaks have had mortality rates ranging from 25 to 90 percent. More than 300,000 people were vaccinated with Ervebo, a vaccine made by the American pharmaceutical giant Merck, which became the world’s first fully licensed Ebola vaccine late last year. A second vaccine, made by Johnson & Johnson, also an American company, was used as part of a clinical trial. Another clinical trial tested four experimental treatments, and two were found to improve survival. While the response succeeded in containing the virus to two Congolese provinces, it was regularly criticized by locals for being involved in the region’s rampant corruption as well as paying unpopular security forces for protection, evidence of which was uncovered by journalists. The WHO, which led the response, has refused to comment on how much


Covid-19 outbreaks at jails and prisons should make us rethink incarceration

Jails and prisons have become centers of the coronavirus, as they have been during every outbreak before it. Incarcerated people have been denied tests and medical care, with those exhibiting symptoms simply thrown into solitary confinement. Prison libraries and educational programs have shut down, but social distancing remains impossible when prisoners live in shared cells and eat in dining halls, four or five to a table. More than 46,000 imprisoned people in the United States have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, and nearly 550 have died. But jails are even more deadly transmitters of the virus than prisons, because they are embedded in local communities. Unlike state and federal prisons, jails are run by counties. Each year, almost 11 million people spend time in U.S. jails — most of them before being convicted of crimes — and during this time, they interact closely with police officers, nurses, custody officers and, of course, other incarcerated people. The covid-19 pandemic has intensified calls for “decarceration” — a push to reduce the number of people under punitive control, in jails and prisons or under electronic monitoring. Though municipalities have met the latest pandemic with modest reforms, the history of jails reveals that saving lives will require permanently reducing the number of people behind bars. Long before covid-19 ravaged incarcerated populations and local communities, government officials turned jails into deadly places by gutting welfare programs and expanding incarceration — policy decisions that have brutalized communities of color in particular. A new report from the University of Michigan’s Documenting Criminalization and Confinement project, “We Live 24/7 in Hell,” reveals that by the early 1970s, prisoners in Detroit’s Wayne County Jail endured systematic abuse and medical neglect — with lethal consequences. During this time, the vast majority of incarcerated people — around 75 percent — were awaiting trial and unable to afford bail. People were assaulted, denied basic medical care, and soap and toothpaste, and were fed vermin-infested food. Deputies subjected one 20-year-old mentally ill woman to prolonged isolation, checking on her only to provide food and to “bathe” her with disinfectant spray. For four months, she lay in a cell covered in trash and feces. In these conditions, mental illness became an epidemic. Thirteen people attempted suicide in just one six-week period. In 1974, David Fregin attempted suicide on his very first day in jail, trying to hang himself with a bedsheet. It would


New research explores how conservative media misinformation may have intensified the severity of the pandemic

of the studies. In April, Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center and Dolores Albarracin of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign published a peer-reviewed study examining how Americans’ media diets affected their beliefs about the coronavirus. Administering a nationally representative phone survey with 1,008 respondents, they found that people who got most of their information from mainstream print and broadcast outlets tended to have an accurate assessment of the severity of the pandemic and their risks of infection. But those who relied on conservative sources, such as Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, were more likely to believe in conspiracy theories or unfounded rumors, such as the belief that taking vitamin C could prevent infection, that the Chinese government had created the virus, and that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention exaggerated the pandemic’s threat “to damage the Trump presidency.” These findings held even after controlling for viewers’ political affiliation, education, gender and age. The authors pinpoint several examples of misinformation circulating in conservative media. For example, on March 6, Fox medical contributor Marc Siegel stated on Hannity’s popular evening program that “the virus should be compared to the flu. Because at worst, at worst, worst-case scenario it could be the flu.” Similarly, in February, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) appeared on Fox’s “Sunday Morning Futures” to suggest, without evidence, that the virus was connected to a research laboratory in Wuhan, China. A working paper posted by the National Bureau of Economic Research in May examined whether these incorrect beliefs affected real-world behavior. The authors used anonymous location data from millions of cellphones to explore how the popularity of Fox News in a given Zip code related to social distancing practices there. By March 15, they found, a 10 percent increase in Fox News viewership within a Zip code reduced its residents’ propensity to stay home, in compliance with public health guidelines, by about 1.3 percentage points. Given total stay-at-home behavior increased by 20 percentage points during the study period, that effect size is “pretty large,” said Andrey Simonov, the study’s lead author. It’s comparable to Fox’s persuasive effect on voting behavior, as identified in a 2017 paper by a different team. “The effect that we measure could be driven by the long-term message of Fox News, which is that the mainstream media often report ‘fake news’ and have a political agenda,” Simonov said. “This could


of the month, Hannity, Carlson and other Fox hosts were discussing the outbreak in similar terms. Then they identified media markets where Hannity is more popular than Carlson to determine whether this coverage influenced people’s behavior. Like Simonov and his colleagues, they used an instrumental variable to sidestep the inherent demographic differences in the show’s two audiences: in this case, variations in local sunset times, which influence how likely people are to stay up later to watch “Hannity,” which typically airs later than “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” They then fielded a survey to Fox News viewers 55 and older to see how their behavior differed in areas where Hannity’s show is more or less popular than Carlson’s program. They found that Hannity viewership was associated with changing pandemic-related behaviors (like hand-washing and canceling travel plans) four days later than other Fox News viewers, while Carlson viewership was associated with changing behaviors three days earlier. Given the importance of individual behavior in curbing the spread of the coronavirus, it stands to reason that places where people were slower to take preventive steps might see more severe outbreaks. That’s exactly what the final step of their analysis shows. “Our results indicate that a one standard deviation increase in relative viewership of Hannity relative to Tucker Carlson Tonight is associated with approximately 32 percent more COVID-19 cases on March 14 and approximately 23 percent more COVID-19 deaths on March 28,” the authors write. They further note that those differences fade beyond March, as the two hosts’ coverage had largely converged by then. In a statement, provided to news outlets writing about these studies, a Fox News spokesman said: “as this timeline proves, Hannity has covered Covid-19 since the early days of the story. The ‘study’ almost completely ignores his coverage and repeated, specific warnings and concerns from January 27-February 26 including an early interview with Dr. Fauci in January. This is a reckless disregard for the truth.” In response, the study’s lead author Leonardo Bursztyn noted that their analysis encompasses the entirety of Fox’s prime-time coverage through the end of March, including Hannity’s interview with Fauci. “There’s no ‘cherry-picking’ possible because our independent MTurk coders read every transcript between late January and late March.” * * * “If the results hold, the research demonstrates the influence that broadcast media can have on behavior,” said Jevin West, director of the Center for an Informed Public


one standard deviation increase in relative viewership of Hannity relative to Tucker Carlson Tonight is associated with approximately 32 percent more COVID-19 cases on March 14 and approximately 23 percent more COVID-19 deaths on March 28,” the authors write. They further note that those differences fade beyond March, as the two hosts’ coverage had largely converged by then. In a statement, provided to news outlets writing about these studies, a Fox News spokesman said: “as this timeline proves, Hannity has covered Covid-19 since the early days of the story. The ‘study’ almost completely ignores his coverage and repeated, specific warnings and concerns from January 27-February 26 including an early interview with Dr. Fauci in January. This is a reckless disregard for the truth.” In response, the study’s lead author Leonardo Bursztyn noted that their analysis encompasses the entirety of Fox’s prime-time coverage through the end of March, including Hannity’s interview with Fauci. “There’s no ‘cherry-picking’ possible because our independent MTurk coders read every transcript between late January and late March.” * * * “If the results hold, the research demonstrates the influence that broadcast media can have on behavior,” said Jevin West, director of the Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington. It’s important to stress that the Simonov and Bursztyn papers have not yet gone through a formal peer-review process, which typically assesses whether the evidence presented in the research supports the claims made. And as with much social science research, definitively proving causality — that Fox News coverage caused people to change behavior, which in turn caused the pandemic to spread more — is beyond the scope of the methods used. “The results are suggestive of this but not conclusive,” West said. “It could be, for example, that long-standing mistrust of government or influence from current political leaders were the main drivers.” However, the studies took a number of steps — including controlling for demographic factors, using instrumental variables to sidestep known and unknown confounders, and running tests for alternative explanations — to strengthen their claims. The University of North Carolina’s Zeynep Tufekci, who has written extensively on the American response to the pandemic, praised the Bursztyn study for its rigor. Nevertheless, not all researchers who have seen these studies have been persuaded. The University of Chicago’s Anthony Fowler has written an op-ed critical of one of the study’s methods, and said in an email


Soldiers’ cases highlight reach of white supremacy in U.S. military

As Ohio National Guard soldiers were dispatched to help quell unrest in Washington, D.C., one was keeping a secret from his commanders: He had frequently espoused neo-Nazi views among like-minded friends. Pfc. Shandon Simpson had participated in a white supremacist channel on the Telegram messaging app called RapeWaffen Division, according to the SITE Intelligence Group. The channel’s members have touted the rape of female police officers, posted images with Confederate battle flags and swastikas and called white women who have children with men of other races “traitors.” On Twitter, Simpson tried to recruit fascists to join him in a new group, used an image of Nazi Party leader Richard Walther Darré as his profile picture and marked the 75th anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s death on April 30. “I pay respects to him as a martyr who died in Berlin completely unwilling to capitulate,” Simpson tweeted, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute, which monitors extremism online. “In loving memory of a great leader of the German people. Rest in peace, führer.” Simpson is one of several service members whose actions have come under scrutiny in recent months as the U.S. military grapples with white extremism in its ranks. The military has wrestled with the problem for decades, but the issue is receiving new attention amid a broader conversation about race and discrimination prompted in part by the death of George Floyd, a black civilian who was killed in police custody last month. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced June 5 that a guard member had been suspended for expressing white supremacist views but did not identify him. Simpson is now being processed for a separation from the military, said Stephanie Beougher, an Ohio National Guard spokeswoman. It is not clear how his actions first came to the attention of authorities, or if he will face any charges. “Racism and prejudice has no place in our organization,” Beougher said in a statement. “Every member of the Ohio National Guard is held to a high standard of professionalism. Ohio knows and trusts its National Guard. Any threat to that public trust will not be tolerated.” Simpson’s case has come into focus as another soldier faces serious charges. On Monday, the Justice Department charged Pvt. Ethan P. Melzer in a plot in which authorities said he worked with the extremist group Order of Nine Angles in an attempt to kill fellow American soldiers


The Technology 202: Lawmakers unveil bipartisan proposal to make social media moderation more transparent

can use data brokers such as Venntel to purchase data that would otherwise require a warrant. The Internal Revenue Service has used data from Venntel to track potential criminal suspects, for instance, the Wall Street Journal recently reported . Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Calif.), as well as Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) also signed the letter. “There is a trust deficit,” Facebook’s head of trust and safety Neil Potts told an advertiser who asked why they should stay on the platform, Brian Fung at CNN reports. “You try to make a decision and people disagree, and maybe that builds that deficit even deeper.” About 200 advertisers were on the call, which was convened by the Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada. In recent weeks more than half a dozen brands including Magnolia Pictures, Ben & Jerry's, North Face and Patagonia We’re looking forward to a very long summer. Gizmodo’s Dell Cameron: The administration also plans to make similar claims about the video surveillance company Hikvision, China Mobile Communications Group and Telecommunications Corp., as well as more than a dozen other companies , Alexandra Alper and Idress Ali at Reuters report . The claims would open the door for the president to impose sanctions on the companies, although the designations would not trigger any penalties. The Commerce Department already blacklisted Hikvision and Huawei, which U.S. officials have long accused of providing a back door for Chinese espionage. Huawei denies the claim. The list could escalate tensions between the United States and China already heightened by the coronavirus pandemic. The new settings are part of a broad series of privacy changes rolled out by the company yesterday, The Verge reports. The company began offering the same tools for users to opt-into last year. Google is under intense scrutiny for its privacy practices both in the United States and in Europe. Last month the state of Arizona sued Google for allegedly tracking users’ locations even if they had turned off location tracking. More industry news: If a judge approves the preliminary injunction, the companies would have to pay workers for employee benefits and protections before a court date, Bloomberg reports. The state of California sued the two companies last month for allegedly violating a law that would reclassify its many contractors as employees. A trial is currently set for August. Lyft told Bloomberg it would fight the injunction. More workforce news: RIP


Virus cases are surging in the U.S. Is our government better prepared now?

Where does the federal response stand? And how does the U.S. response compare to the response globally? What can we learn from countries who are seeing smaller scale spikes and have plans to contain them? Reporters Yasmeen Abutaleb and Rick Noack explain.


Trump keeps claiming that the most dangerous cities in America are all run by Democrats. They aren’t.

You are certainly aware that cities tend to be heavily Democratic. In the 2018 House elections, Democrats won every district identified by CityLab as being purely urban. They lost only one district identified as an “urban-suburban mix.” In other words, Democrats won 81 of the 82 congressional districts identified as fully or partially urban. Why are cities so Democratic? A few reasons. One is that there’s been a broad redistribution of the American population over the past few decades, with Americans being more likely to live near those who share their politics. Young Americans with or seeking college degrees have moved to large urban centers for work or education, leaving older relatives in more suburban and rural areas. 2018 data from Pew Research Center found that people in urban counties were twice as likely to be Democrats or Democrat-leaning independents as Republicans or Republican-leaning independents — a 31-point margin. Two decades previously, the spread between the parties was only 18 points. In rural areas, Republicans had a 16-point advantage, while in 1998 both parties were equally represented. Another is that cities are less densely white. The Pew research also found that less than half of urban residents were non-Hispanic white. Since nonwhite Americans are much more heavily Democratic, that’s made cities more densely Democratic, too. Since there’s a correlation between size and amount of crime and between size and propensity to vote Democratic, it’s problematic to draw a causal relationship between crime and Democratic leadership. It may be the case that cities with more crime are more likely to have Democratic leaders. Such a comparison, though, is fraught, relying on the validity of reported crime data, the metric used to establish which cities are included in the analysis, the time period under consideration and so on. To a large extent, of course, Trump isn’t really trying to make a point beyond “cities and Democrats are scary.” He’s not going to win cities but he might scare suburban voters — voters he desperately needs in November — by tying Democrats and crime together. In 2016, that’s precisely what he tried to do during his speech at the Republican convention. That might be harder this year, given that his convention speech will not be in Charlotte, as originally planned. Instead, Trump will be speaking from Jacksonville, a city with a lot of violent crime that happens to be led by a Republican.


‘I’ll Be Gone in the Dark’ isn’t just another true-crime docuseries. It’s a brilliant look at how the genre pulls us in.

rape victims. Eventually, McNamara produced a long, meaty Los Angeles magazine article about all of this, renewing interest in the cold cases and becoming something of a celebrity in the true-crime world. She signed a big book contract and continued her relentless search for new evidence, gaining the trust of state and local investigators — one of whom gave her access to a roomful of boxed evidence. This is where “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark” necessarily turns its attention to how the case consumed McNamara, who struggled with stress and insomnia and showed signs of depression. Like so many people in this docuseries, she carried old hurts from the past, including the experience of being sexually harassed. She self-medicated with painkillers, sleep aids, anti-anxiety drugs and amphetamines. An autopsy attributed her death, at age 46 in 2016, to an accidental overdose. Anyone who has ever watched a Garbus documentary knows that we are not coming away from this with anything other than the full story, from Oswalt as well as McNamara’s friends and older siblings, no matter how painful it is. It is up to those who loved her and knew her best to finish her manuscript, which ended on her hope that DNA might provide the real break in the case and that the Golden State Killer would eventually hear a fateful knock on his door and have to answer for his crimes. McNamara never got to see it. But it is in that tragic conclusion that Garbus and company deliver “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark’s” most striking and thoughtful aspect, as a community of survivors and true-crime fans seem to unite in their desire to speak out, reveal secrets and shine their light on the darkness. As some of the citizen investigators, survivors and others affiliated with McNamara’s work gather to promote her book, “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark” travels to the annual CrimeCon gathering, where a camera pans across a huge audience and, perhaps unwittingly, reveals a demographic similarity in gender, age and race — it’s an auditorium full of Michelle McNamaras. I’ve yet to see any project in the true-crime genre that also takes time to so eloquently and empathetically relate to why so many people (indeed, so many women) find their place here. Fear might have drawn them to true crime, but the real payoff is a sense of courage and strength.


New planets discovered orbiting a star 11 light-years away

in longevity. “Because they’re burning their nuclear fuel so much more prudently, their life is very much longer” than suns like ours, Haswell said. This study adds to evidence that red dwarf stars may commonly host planets, said Knicole Colon, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center who was not a member of the research team. “The star closest to the Sun, Proxima Centauri, is known to host at least one exoplanet,” Colon said, referring to another red dwarf, “but discovering additional nearby planets is important to understand the demographics of exoplanets in the galaxy.” Jeffers, Haswell and an international team of astronomer colleagues used a planet-hunting telescope in the Chilean desert to monitor the star for three months. The device used is so sensitive that it can detect movements of a meter per second, Haswell said — it can sense a sun trillions of miles away, moving at speeds as slow as a person walks. Subtle perturbations in the star’s light revealed that gravity from nearby planets tugged on Gliese 887. The pattern of those shifts of starlight suggested that two “superEarths” — at least four to seven times the size of our own — are orbiting the star at a close distance and at a dizzying rate, with one needing just nine days to complete a full tour and the other, 22 days. Additional wobbles in the starlight hint at the existence of a third planet. “Whether there’s more planets in the system, I don’t know,” said study author Paul Butler, an astrophysicist at the Carnegie Institution for Science. The scientists could not say conclusively that they had found it because the star’s natural activity might have created a false signal of a third orbiting body. But if that planet is really there, it would be in the “habitable zone,” an orbital region in which the amount of radiation from the star would allow water to remain liquid at the planet’s surface rather than freezing or boiling away. At 33,000 mph, the speed of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft cruising at the edge of the solar system, a trip to GJ 887 would take more than 220,000 years. Read more: This star is the farthest ever seen. It’s 9 billion light-years away. There’s a new planet in the neighborhood — and it looks like a nice place to live Scientists discover 7 ‘Earthlike’ planets orbiting a nearby star


We can’t protect nursing homes from covid-19 without protecting everyone

optional for nursing homes to report covid-19 cases and deaths related to the coronavirus before May 8, we might never get a clear picture of how the pandemic ravaged these facilities in its early months. One initial estimate suggested that the federal reporting system might have undercounted the number of nursing home residents and staff members killed by the pandemic by as many as 14,000, or 35 percent. But what we know is bad enough. As of June 7, there were more than 107,000 covid-19 cases documented among nursing home residents, nearly 30,000 of whom died. More than 66,000 staff members were diagnosed with covid-19; roughly 500 died. Given these numbers, it would be comforting to know that some nursing homes have cracked the code and figured out how to keep their residents safe. But according to our research, location and facility size matter much more than prior quality in predicting whether a nursing home will have a serious covid-19 outbreak. The most important factors influencing whether and how large an outbreak occurs in a nursing home are the population density of the county in which the facility is located, the prevalence of the virus reported in the county and the racial distribution of the nursing home, which are all correlated. Location matters because the coronavirus that causes covid-19 often spreads without causing symptoms. Visitors have not been allowed in most facilities since March, but staff members still go to work. If a covid-19 outbreak is underway in the community where staff members live, the pandemic will soon be in the nursing home where they work. Many nursing homes can improve their infection-control procedures. But the expectation that good nursing homes can stop transmission while poorly rated nursing homes cannot is unwarranted. Many top-rated nursing homes have been overwhelmed, while a lot of poorly rated ones are free of covid-19 largely because their staff members live in areas with low rates of infection. It is also not true, as some Republican lawmakers suggested at a recent House briefing, that policies such as New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s since-rescinded mandate that nursing homes accept recovering covid-19 patients are largely to blame for coronavirus deaths in these facilities. Several states, including Massachusetts, never required nursing homes to admit covid-19 patients upon their release from the hospital and still experienced significant outbreaks in these facilities. To save the lives of nursing home


Some zoo animals are doing fine without visitors. But many are lonely without us.

by zoos. The institutions ostensibly exist for the preservation of animals. But if we’re honest with ourselves, conservation is often for and funded by human enjoyment of animal life; zoos, after all, are categorized by New Jersey law as “amusements.” During the pandemic, to protect animal life, zoos continue to run for the benefit of the amusers even as we forgo our own good time. Which means no annoying people crowding around enclosures. No kids yelling or cameras flashing or cellphones accidentally dropping into their homes. There have been news stories about penguins that got to take a hike in the woods near their exhibit in Oregon and cheetahs in Providence, R.I., that were visited by a keeper in a tantalizing rabbit costume. In Hong Kong, a pair of pandas that had been haplessly failing to mate for a decade managed to consummate their union after their zoo shut to the public in January. Nature is healing, as the coronavirus-era meme says. Humans are the disease. If that’s true, then a human-free environment is a respite for the animals of the Cape May Zoo — a blessed break from watching us watch them. Away from the strains and scrutiny of public life, without people making everything worse, maybe the blue crowned pigeons will get the chance to follow the lead of the pandas: It’s time to relax, make a baby and finally finish that home improvement project. When I visited the 52-acre Cape May County Zoo in mid-May, it had been locked to the public since March 16 at the order of New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy. The length of this shutdown bests the previous record-holding break by several months. Since then, keepers who normally rotate between groups of the more than 600 animals there have been staying in one section to avoid cross-contamination and are working in isolation from other employees. While the zoo is a public facility that gets a budget from the county government to pay zookeeper salaries, parks director Ed Runyon says the organization runs “almost entirely” on donations from visitors, who pay no entrance fees. In spring, the zoo typically takes in about a quarter of its annual donations, which cover costs like the staggering $50,000 a month food bill. A month from now, on June 13, zoo director and head veterinarian Hubert “Doc” Paluch will enact his plan to reopen with limited visitors, one-way


New York City Marathon canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic

The New York City Marathon, one of the biggest road races in the world, was canceled Wednesday because of the novel coronavirus pandemic. The decision to scrap the 50th edition of the race, which runs through the city’s five boroughs and draws more than 50,000 runners, 10,000 volunteers and around 1 million spectators, was “incredibly disappointing,” the chief executive of New York Road Runners, the race’s owner and organizer, said in a statement. Cancellation “was clearly the course we needed to follow from a health and safety perspective,” Michael Capiraso said. “Marathon Day and the many related events and activities during race week are part of the heart and soul of New York City and the global running community, and we look forward to coming together next year.” Social distancing is all but impossible in a marathon, and traveling may be impossible for international competitors. The race, which had been set for Nov. 1, will take place Nov. 7, 2021, and follows the precedent set by the Boston Marathon, which had been postponed from April until September before being canceled in May. The Oct. 4 London and Oct. 11 Chicago marathons remain scheduled; the Tokyo Marathon took place in March with only elite runners competing. The Marine Corps Marathon remains scheduled for Oct. 25 in the Washington, D.C., area. “While the marathon is an iconic and beloved event in our city, I applaud New York Road Runners for putting the health and safety of both spectators and runners first,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement. “We look forward to hosting the 50th running of the marathon in November of 2021.” Runners who registered for the 2020 NYC Marathon can choose to receive a refund or defer entry over the next three years. They also can run a virtual version of the event, with details coming in July. Although infection rates and death tolls have declined significantly in the New York City region, “this was really the only decision,” Capiraso said.


How a spring break trip to Mexico triggered a coronavirus outbreak among 60 Texas college students

On March 19, the day the Trump administration urged Americans to stop traveling internationally, a group of students from the University of Texas at Austin returned from a spring break trip to a Mexican beach resort. Within two weeks, 60 of the 183 travelers to Cabo San Lucas, along with four contacts, tested positive for the novel coronavirus, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As students prepare to return to many universities this fall, the case study offers a window into how easily the virus spreads among college students — and how it can be contained. Researchers likened their close quarters and constant interaction to the environment of a nursing home in the potential for disease spread. “Contact tracing and testing of close contacts, regardless of symptoms, is important in limiting spread, especially in young and healthy populations living in shared housing,” they wrote. That effort limited the outbreak in this case, as did a local shelter-in-place order issued by Austin on March 25, six days after the students returned, the researchers concluded. As schools reopen, “we need to have resources in place to be able to act and respond to these clusters,” including for people in isolation, said Darlene Bhavnani, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at UT-Austin’s Dell Medical School and the lead epidemiologist on the school’s contact-tracing efforts. At the time, reports of positive cases provoked outrage among local leaders. “It’s time to grow up,” Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen (R) said. “That is grossly irresponsible.” Parents of some students defended their decisions to allow the trip, saying they were told by the travel company JusCollege they could not get refunds if they canceled because there was not yet a travel advisory to avoid Mexico. “We take the safety of our customers very seriously and worked with public health authorities to assist with contact tracing where we could,” said a spokeswoman for JusCollege. “It was an unprecedented and rapidly evolving situation, and our communications to our customers were being updated in line with the changing U.S. government guidelines.” The school began its investigation on March 28, after three of the travelers tested positive. They quickly identified the trip as a source of the outbreak through contact-tracing interviews. Although the first patient did not experience symptoms until the trip was over, some in the group became ill while in Mexico. “Symptoms were mild in most


until the trip was over, some in the group became ill while in Mexico. “Symptoms were mild in most cases,” Bhavnani said. “It was allergy season here, so a lot of people told us they weren’t really sure” whether they were sick. Working with public health authorities, the school identified 298 travelers and close contacts and interviewed all but nine. Asymptomatic travelers and their contacts were advised to self-quarantine and monitor themselves for symptoms for 14 days. Symptomatic travelers and their contacts were offered tests and told to self-isolate until they got a negative test result, or for seven days after their symptoms began and three days without a fever. Ultimately, 231 people were tested. But after half of the first batch of tests came back positive, the school decided to test anyone who had traveled to Cabo. Beyond April 2, two weeks after the travelers returned, testing continued only for symptomatic travelers and contacts. The investigation ended April 5, when the last symptomatic contacts got negative test results. Bhavnani said the insular nature of the group helped contain the spread — “people would name each other as contacts, over and over again.” The travelers were sharing hotel rooms during the trip and dorms or houses after their return to Austin. About 90 percent took chartered planes to Mexico together, according to Bhavnani; the rest took private jets or commercial flights. The median age in the group was 22. Although 78 percent of those who tested positive experienced symptoms, none required hospitalization, and none died. The most common symptoms were cough, sore throat, headache and loss of sense of smell or taste. “Asymptomatic persons or those with mild symptoms likely play an important role in sustaining SARS-CoV-2 transmission during outbreaks, especially in younger populations, such as the one described here,” the researchers wrote. Half of those who tested negative also experienced symptoms. The researchers suggest that those patients may have lied about symptoms to get a test early in the investigation or contracted a flu variety going around at the time. They also note that coronavirus tests have a false negative rate of up to 29 percent. Most students were tested only once, so some cases might have been missed. “That was actually a limitation because we were not able to test over time,” Bhavnani said. “It could have been the case that someone’s result would have been positive later.”


Dozens of Secret Service officers and agents told to self-quarantine after Trump’s Tulsa rally

outside the hospital. Among those who got tested was U.S. Attorney R. Trent Shores of the Northern District of Oklahoma, who had attended both pre-planning meetings with advance staff and the rally in case any legal issues arose, according to spokeswoman Lennea Montandon. Shores tested negative, she said. It is still unknown how the rally may have impacted Tulsa’s count of coronavirus cases, which are rising swiftly. Tulsa County hit a new record Wednesday, with 259 new confirmed cases, part of “steep upward trends” seen across Oklahoma, said Bruce Dart, the director of Tulsa’s Health Department, at a news conference Wednesday. The move by the Secret Service to try to limit the spread of the infection shows how Trump’s decision to go forward with the rally increased the health risks and burden on the people who protect the president, former agents said. A Secret Service spokeswoman declined to comment on how many of its employees have tested positive or were quarantined, but said the Tulsa event has not affected the agency’s ability to do its job. “The U.S. Secret Service remains prepared and staffed to fulfill all of the various duties as required,” agency spokeswoman Catherine Milhoan said in a statement. “To protect the privacy of our employees’ health information and for operational security, the Secret Service is not releasing how many of its employees have tested positive for COVID-19, nor how many of its employees were, or currently are, quarantined,” she added. White House spokesman Judd Deere did not directly answer questions about whether the president regretted the trip or if it increased the exposure risks for the agency, White House staff or himself. “The President takes the health and safety of everyone traveling in support of himself and all White House operations very seriously,” Deere said in a statement. “When preparing for and carrying out any travel, White House Operations collaborates with the Physician to the President and the White House Military Office, to ensure plans incorporate current CDC guidance and best practices for limiting COVID-19 exposure to the greatest extent possible.” The Trump campaign hoped the Tulsa trip would rally supporters in the heavily red state of Oklahoma amid polls showing an increasing number of voters concerned about the president’s handling of the pandemic, a stall in the economy and racial unrest over police violence against black Americans. Before Trump and his son Eric Trump were scheduled


Record plume of Sahara Desert dust reduces visibility in Puerto Rico, aims at Southeast U.S.

(This article, first published on Monday afternoon, was updated Tuesday midday.) A nearly 4,000-mile-long plume of thick dust from the Sahara Desert that arrived in Puerto Rico, Hispaniola and Cuba is forecast to move into the Gulf of Mexico, inland from Texas to the lower Mississippi River Valley Thursday and Friday, before reaching Washington this weekend. The plume is part of a phenomena that develops every year off the coast of Africa, known as the Saharan Air Layer (SAL), but the current one is unusually intense and is setting records, scientists say. The SAL typically forms over the Sahara Desert from the late spring into the early fall, and it moves in pulses out into the tropical North Atlantic every few days. Hurricane forecasters closely track these outbreaks, because such air masses can prevent incipient storms from forming and choke existing storms, starving them of moisture, until they meet an early demise. It is common for dust to be blown from the Sahara Desert in northern Africa and reach the Lesser Antilles and Gulf Coast, where it can cause captivating sunsets. But it is less common for such events to dramatically lower visibility and lead to air quality problems, which have occurred with this event. Studies have found microbial life can hitch a ride on the SAL and land on the shores of Florida and waters of the Gulf of Mexico after a turbulent journey above the sea. In fact, research even suggests harmful algal blooms may follow such events due to the dust’s deposition of iron into the sea. Strong winds blowing out from thunderstorms over the Sahel initially kicked up dust to an altitude of around 20,000 feet above the desert before it slipped westward, out to sea on June 14, according to Jason Dunion, a hurricane researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. On satellite imagery, the dust resembles a long appendage extending from the western edge of northern Africa, clear across the tropical Atlantic Ocean. The dust is divided into batches connected by thinner wisps. The leading edge of the approaching Saharan dust cloud had made it to Antigua, part of the Lesser Antilles on Sunday, where its arrival was heralded by a milky translucent veil draped overhead. The high concentrations of fine particle pollution caused air quality levels to tank into the unhealthy range in many parts of the Lesser Antilles, where they have


Is it safer to fly or drive this summer? 5 health experts weigh in.

have minimal interactions with people when you stop to get gas or get food, if you go through the drive-through. Those are pretty minimal risks to take.” And if you need to stop at a hotel along the way, Watson considers that a low risk. “As long as you’re not hanging out in the bar or in the common areas with lots of people, it’s a reasonable thing to do to stay somewhere while you’re on a road trip or going on vacation.” On a plane, she said, travelers are exposed to more risks because they’re seated near strangers for a prolonged period and could potentially be grouped with more people throughout the airport. Watson said the risk can be minimized by wearing face coverings and keeping a distance as much as possible. Ideally, travelers would be able to avoid being within six feet of someone for more than 15 minutes (that 15-minute time frame is based on the CDC’s practices around contact tracing), especially without a face covering. “We don’t have a lot of evidence of transmission happening on planes, but I think the risk is there when you’re with that many people in close quarters,” Watson said. While airlines are taking measures such as requiring passengers to wear masks or not filling middle seats, keeping six feet away from anyone else for extended periods is likely to present a challenge. “There are fewer flights, we’ve all seen those pictures of people kind of crammed in on a flight,” Watson said. “That could happen, and you could be stuck sitting on a plane that is full capacity for an extended period of time.” Robert Quigley, senior vice president and regional medical director at the risk mitigation company International SOS, said he understands that people are eager to travel again. “Everybody’s getting cabin fever; there’s no doubt about that,” he said. But if people do travel, he urged them to remember basic precautions such as the social distancing and thorough hand washing that have become staples of the past few months. Quigley warned that road trips and air travel carry their own risks. “Both of them have their challenges, but I think the one you can control a little better is the motor vehicle as opposed to the airplane,” he said. He said he would have liked to think that airlines would continue practices such as keeping middle seats empty


Summer camp during coronavirus will look a little different

centers never closed, state epidemiologist Jennifer A. Dillaha said there had been 16 cases of covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, in children and 29 in staff members. But contact tracing showed the infections originated from household contacts or elsewhere rather than at day-care centers. “We’ve been pleased we have not seen many cases in this setting,” she said. In contrast, Maryland reported 17 outbreaks — defined as two or more cases in a setting — in 12 child-care centers and five family child-care settings as of Monday among 4,776 facilities open. It was unclear whether that was because of greater testing capability, more aggressive transmission of the virus in the general population, something specific to the operations of those providers or another cause. Texas logged 242 positive cases (167 staff, 75 children) among the 12,172 child-care facilities that are open. But it was unclear how many, if any, were clusters that may have involved transmission at the sites because officials could not provide more details. As Dallas County on Thursday reported an all-time high in cases overall, officials noted that 17 children and staff in nine child-care facilities had been found positive during the past week. Likewise, California officials said the state had 202 covid-19 cases related to child-care facilities, with 33,411 open, but declined to provide details “to protect privacy.” Jason Montiel, from the state’s public affairs office, said, “Thankfully, child care has not experienced any covid-19 deaths.” The largest study on child care and covid-19 is expected to be out in July. Walter Gilliam, director of child development and social policy at Yale University’s School of Medicine, said he hopes the data, based on information from 100,000 providers nationwide, will help explain how children spread the virus and what prevention measures might be most effective amid intensifying calls to reopen child-care programs. “We are asking people to go back to work to a job where they sometimes can’t socially distance. That’s asking a lot without any real sense of risk,” Gilliam said. Australia, Denmark, Norway, Singapore and several other countries where schools and day-care centers reopened as early as April have reported no outbreaks and no resulting surge in cases in the larger population. In contrast, Israel abruptly shut its schools two weeks after reopening when a cluster of 130 cases emerged at a Jerusalem high school. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has


Hedge fund manager stands to profit on ‘flip’ of taxpayer-funded coronavirus drug

coronavirus amid signs that covid-19, the disease the virus causes, will become a stubborn, endemic illness that lingers in human populations for many years. If it works and is found to be safe, it likely would become a strong rival to Gilead’s remdesivir, the first antiviral to treat the coronavirus, which must be given intravenously. “EIDD-2801 has several attributes including oral availability, broad antiviral activity versus multiple coronavirus strains, notably SARS-CoV-2, as shown in preclinical studies, and early clinical results showing that it is well-tolerated from a study conducted by Ridgeback,” Merck said in an email. But the path to Merck’s portfolio of early-stage drugs has grabbed attention. “Molecule-flipping is a good characterization of what it is,” said James Love, director of Knowledge Ecology International, a nonprofit watchdog group that tracks public investments and intellectual property. Hunting through scientific papers and forging alliances with academic laboratories is often done by small firms backed by venture capitalists. Start-ups looking to profit by securing rights to new molecules and nurturing their early-stage development are an ingrained part of the ecosystem of drug development. The goal typically is to push a drug far enough through the approval pipeline — a process that often takes years — until a larger company buys the rights and completes commercialization. With the coronavirus creating huge demand, that activity is accelerating, say specialists in drug licensing and intellectual property. “Merck is much better positioned and funded to move the drug through development,” said Joseph A. DiMasi, director of economic analysis and research at the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, which receives drug industry funding. “It is the speed with which this has happened that is extraordinary. That speed in the context of a pandemic is a good thing.” The flood of government money is spurring attention to diseases that have been neglected by large drug companies. Vaccines and therapies for viruses do not hold the promise of large, lucrative drug sales because they are not taken as regular treatments for chronic conditions. Many virus outbreaks disappear on their own, making it risky for companies to spend on research. To plug the gap, U.S. government agencies support academic research, or invent and develop drugs directly in government labs. “When it was limited to things like Ebola and SARS, you didn’t see as much as engagement by the private sectors. These were normally backwater areas in neglected


I took a plane trip this week. It was surprisingly pleasant.

been a miserable experience for almost everyone but elite-level fliers for years. The average trip is filled with delays, cramped quarters and annoyed fellow passengers. So there is no small irony in the fact that my covid-19-era flight to Los Angeles may stand as the best experience on an airplane I will ever have. Contact-free boarding was a breeze, and there were no arguments over bin space: The flight was, at most 40 percent full. Many of the passengers — including me — had an entire row to themselves. What else? The plane was sparkling. Due to the pandemic, most airlines now have a policy of deep cleaning the jets between flights, not just the usual tidying up. There was no delay in leaving JFK, and when we landed at LAX, we were at a gate all but instantaneously. I was reunited with my suitcase within minutes. To no surprise, everyone on the flight — all of whom had boarded masked, without a fuss — was in a good mood, though I did overhear one fellow flier complaining about the lack of booze for sale. That’s not to say my air travel experience was completely issue-free; it most certainly was not. Food and beverage service was limited to a prepackaged snack bag — hence the line at the remnants of the JFK food court, and my fellow passenger unhappy about the lack of alcohol on the flight. More significantly, mask-wearing got a bit slack as flight time wore on. A number of people lowered them, and no one — to the best of my knowledge, at least — said much of anything. When I reached out to JetBlue to ask what their policy was on enforcing mask-wearing, they responded, “We’re seeing good compliance but there are cases where crew members need to step in.” (At the time, I nervously reminded myself that it’s probably safe to fly.) And you won’t be surprised to hear that despite pleas by the cabin crew for passengers to maintain social distancing as we exited the plane, people did no such thing. The moment the plane arrived at the gate, people leapt up from their seats and into the aisles like the days of old. It was horrifying but also, in a strange way, reassuring. Covid-19 hasn’t changed everything. One day, the skies will be crowded again. Business and leisure travel declined dramatically after 9/11,


Transcript: Corporate Purpose & Social Responsibility

and diverse representation of that workforce to give them tools on future skills so that they will have opportunities to compete for higher-paying jobs in the future. MS. SELLERS: So, let me talk to you now a little about your work with China, obviously a big buyer of chips. $72 billion, I believe, of your revenue last year came from trade with China. Two aspects have changed that: COVID and also the trade wars. How has that impacted your company? MR. SWAN: Well, first, last year we had $72 billion of revenue as a company, and then a significant portion of that-- MS. SELLERS: Sorry, a portion of it. MR. SWAN: --25 percent, is from China. So, the sale of chips, ourselves or through our partners, to the big global economy--or the big economy in China, it's a very important part of our business, not just as a market, but in terms of production capabilities and real technology. A lot of employees that we have in China. It's an important market for us. So, in terms of the implications of geopolitical dynamics and global trade, we've been very vocal about our belief that global trade is good for the global economy. It needs to be fair. And tariffs are not an effective mechanism to enable global trade. So, first and foremost, for us, is using our platform to establish what we think is important for global trade. Well we--as a company, Intel--we have almost 60 percent of our production is here in the U.S. So, we're one of the largest R&D spenders in the world. We have a significant production footprint here in the U.S., but we sell our products all over the world, including China. And we--in doing so, we make money and it gives us the capacity to reinvest in R&D and into our manufacturing footprint, here. So, it's being vocal, using our platform to talk about the pros and benefits of global trade that's been very important. And the second aspect to your question, the implications of COVID, obviously, for us, we set out three priorities originally right out of the gate on how we're going to deal with this pandemic. And in the early stages, as you know, it was somewhat isolated in China; thus, we knew. And with a large workforce there and customers that counted on us, we set three critical priorities out of


of one of the most important things that I and the rest of the founders and the executive team have focused on--I think it translates to, you know, we've been in business for over seven years, we've got over 150 employees and only 6 people have ever left the company. You know, outside of COVID, we've always said that, you know, if you're dealing with a mental illness or you just had a really bad breakup or a family member is sick or dying or you have to take care of somebody, you know, take the time, right? We trust you. We understand that you'll hit your goals. We work together as a team. You know, we're rooted in this idea of, you know, Bombas stands for the word--it comes from the word of the Latin word for bumblebee. Bees are as a hive. They work together to make their world a better place, they support each other, and we kind of have that built in from the start. So, we know that, with this, you know, pandemic parents have been hit so hard because they're doing double duty, right? They're working two jobs, now, and they're working two jobs at the same time. So, it's like, during the day they're teaching, they're cooking, they're cleaning, and they're also having to manage their own jobs. So, we've encouraged parents, like, take time. If you want to start later, if you want a more flexible schedule. If you need to take three days off to, you know, run a garden hose in the background and play with your kids, like, go do whatever you need to do. And we'll either have people there to support you, or we know that, look, it's not the end of the world if you miss a couple of deadlines. We're building Bombas for the long term, so we're not--you know, we're--luckily, we're not venture capital backed. We don't have to hit these kinds of milestones for growth. We're not concerned with public valuations and things like that. Like, you know, we look at the brands like Patagonia and Nike and Apple, you know, good brands are built over decades; they're not built over years. And so, you know, we inherit that longevity. MS. SELLERS: So, I have a viewer question that's come in that I'd like to put to Suzanne. It's from Damien Wilson of


Policing the black imagination

Post Reports is the daily podcast from The Washington Post. Unparalleled reporting. Expert insight. Clear analysis. Everything you’ve come to expect from the newsroom of The Post. For your ears. Martine Powers is your host, asking the questions you didn’t know you wanted answered. Listen online. Today on Post Reports, Chris Richards on how rapper Drakeo the Ruler dropped an urgent and timely album from jail. And Fredrick Kunkle on the history of germs, and how the discovery of pathogens changed the way we live. Read more: The most urgent rap album of 2020? Drakeo the Ruler just recorded it from jail. The discovery of pathogens changed the way we function. Will covid-19 do the same? Subscribe to The Washington Post: https://postreports.com/offer


Man, 33, shot and killed in Northwest Washington

A 33-year-old man was fatally shot early Friday in Northwest Washington. D.C. police said the incident unfolded around 12:30 a.m. in the unit block of New York Avenue NW near North Capitol Street NW. When officers arrived they found a man, who was later identified as Robert Judd of Northwest Washington, suffering from gunshot wounds. He was taken to an area hospital, where he was pronounced dead. A reward of up to $25,000 is being offered for information that leads to an arrest of a suspect or suspects and conviction of those involved. The city has had 80 homicides so far this year, according to D.C. police.


Transcript: Chasing Cancer: How the COVID-19 Pandemic Effects Cancer Outcome

MS. SELLERS: Good afternoon and welcome to Chasing Cancer 2020. I’m Frances Stead Sellers, a senior writer at The Washington Post. My first guest today is Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee. He's a renowned oncologist, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, and he's also serving on Governor Andrew Cuomo's commission to rebuild New York's economy in the wake of the pandemic. Welcome, Dr. Mukherjee. I'd like-- DR. MUKHERJEE: Thank you. Thank you for having me. MS. SELLERS: Delighted to have you. I'd like to start by asking you about the huge surge in cases we have across some of the parts of the country, and states in the South and Southwest, particularly. What's going on there? Is America opening too quickly, too soon, too unscientifically? DR. MUKHERJEE: Well, I think--I mean, some aspects of the surge were expected. So, I think some of it is just the fact that once you let the--once you let people interact there will be infections. I do fear that we are opening without adequate masking and adequate protection. I'm extraordinarily worried that the messaging that we've tried so desperately to move into people's minds over the last two months has not fully penetrated. And that is, you know, avoid crowded spaces, avoid closed spaces, and avoid contact, and obviously, if you're ill yourself, get tested and get isolated and quarantined. Right now, in the absence of a vaccine and with the very, very few medicines that we have available against COVID-19, this public health strategy is the best strategy. You can either, you know, basically isolate yourself, or you can isolate your respiratory system by wearing a mask. And I think part of the problem is that outside, you know, many, many other--many places, I see photographs of people--I've not been traveling outside New York City, but I see photographs of people wearing no masks, in close contact with each other, and I think that's a big, big, big, big problem. In New York, I was out this morning, and virtually everyone is masked. MS. SELLERS: So, I was going to ask you specifically about New York because you're serving on this commission there. What does New York have now? Does it have specific tools to protect against a second wave? Are you worried about that given what we're seeing in, you know, as I said states like Arizona and Florida and Texas? DR. MUKHERJEE: So again,


know, avoid crowded spaces, avoid closed spaces, and avoid contact, and obviously, if you're ill yourself, get tested and get isolated and quarantined. Right now, in the absence of a vaccine and with the very, very few medicines that we have available against COVID-19, this public health strategy is the best strategy. You can either, you know, basically isolate yourself, or you can isolate your respiratory system by wearing a mask. And I think part of the problem is that outside, you know, many, many other--many places, I see photographs of people--I've not been traveling outside New York City, but I see photographs of people wearing no masks, in close contact with each other, and I think that's a big, big, big, big problem. In New York, I was out this morning, and virtually everyone is masked. MS. SELLERS: So, I was going to ask you specifically about New York because you're serving on this commission there. What does New York have now? Does it have specific tools to protect against a second wave? Are you worried about that given what we're seeing in, you know, as I said states like Arizona and Florida and Texas? DR. MUKHERJEE: So again, we're using the best public health measures that we know, and as--right now, in the absence of a vaccine and with very few medicines that work, the best public health measures are the ones I described. New York, as you very well know, is opening in phases. We are now in a--in the first phase of the opening, and businesses are now open. Some businesses are now open in--you know. Restaurants are open on--in open spaces, and that's because we know from a lot of data that most of the infections, virtually all of the infections, with COVID-19 occur in closed, crowded spaces, when you have intimate contact with respiratory droplets from someone who is infected. So, I think the phase-by-phase opening is actually the right way to do things. I think really emphasizing that masking and isolation and avoiding of crowds in closed spaces is the right way to do things. And if you don't do it, I think we will face a second wave which will unfortunately cripple--you know, if we do another shutdown, it will cripple the economy once again-- MS. SELLERS: Right. DR. MUKHERJEE: --and that's what we want to avoid. I would implore, really implore


delayed. There was a time, I have to say, that clinical trials for cancer had to be slowed down, and in fact, recruitment slowed down because we--you know, the hospital was overwhelmed by coronavirus. And this is again a good reason to be thoughtful about this because if you--you know. Containment of the COVID-19 pandemic not only helps people with COVID-19, but of course, it helps people with any medical condition. So, we are now--we've now restarted in New York, at least at my hospital, restarted virtually every trial. The IRBs are functioning again. A lot of the meetings are being done through the web, but nonetheless, they are still functioning. And laboratories are up and running with new protocols to keep social distancing and masking available. So, we are back, I would say mostly on track, but remember we are in phase one of the--of the reopening. MS. SELLERS: Right. So, talk a little bit more broadly about the health care system as a whole. How has the virus changed how things are being done? You've talked a little bit about telemedicine. Do you see other changes that will be ongoing and potentially beneficial that will emerge from this situation? DR. MUKHERJEE: Yes. So, I think--I mean, one of the things that's emerged is we--we've learned very quickly, I think, that we need a--that we need a strong pandemic response team. We've learned very quickly again that we need to strengthen the CDC and the FDA. One of the most crucial--I would say one of the most crucial problems and/or challenges for COVID-19 was there was a 42-day delay between the detection of the first case of COVID-19 in Seattle and the widespread availability of testing from the CDC/FDA for patients. That delay should--you know, really put us back in terms of being able to track and trace and isolate people, and by the time the testing kits were widely available, you know, the pandemic had already spread in the United States. So, we've learned lessons there. As I said, they are very sobering lessons. One more lesson is that the current system by which we stockpile and give personal protective equipment to doctors facing a pandemic was not in the right place. Many doctors and nurses, as you know, were infected. Some of them have, unfortunately, died. This was a huge tragedy. And so that's another thing we've


Mexico City’s top security official injured in apparent assassination attempt

MEXICO CITY — At least a dozen armed men staged an attack Friday on Mexico City’s top security official, who narrowly escaped the apparent assassination attempt that left at least three people dead. The gunmen shot .50-caliber weapons at the SUV carrying Omar García Harfuch, Mexico City’s secretary of public security, in one of the capital’s most exclusive neighborhoods. García Harfuch was injured in the attack but was in stable condition. Two police officers and one passerby were killed, officials said. Twelve people were detained. Violence has continued to rise across Mexico, even during the coronavirus pandemic. Mexico City’s wealthier enclaves have typically been spared, though, making Friday’s attack particularly startling for residents here. Photos of García Harfuch’s Chevrolet Suburban show the vehicle ripped apart by bullets. Several hours after the attack, García Harfuch wrote on Twitter that one of Mexico’s largest drug cartels, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, known by its Spanish acronym, CJNG, was responsible for the attack. “This morning we were cowardly attacked by the CJNG, two colleagues and friends of mine lost their life, I have three bullet wounds and several shards,” he wrote. “Our Nation must continue to confront the cowardly organized crime. We will continue working.” The Jalisco cartel has risen to prominence since splitting off from the Sinaloa Cartel around 2010. It has gained territorial control over much of Mexico and has violently clashed with other cartels during that expansion. But it has seldom attempted to assassinate high-level Mexican officials. The United States has actively targeted members of the cartel, arresting hundreds of people associated with the group and extraditing others. At 38, García Harfuch is among the youngest people ever to ascend to the top of Mexico City’s security apparatus. Many see him as a promising leader, willing to take on the country’s growing problem of narco-violence. On Friday afternoon, the Mexico City attorney general’s office interrogated suspects. In a statement, Attorney General Ernestina Godoy Ramos said detainees admitted that a total of 28 gunmen were recruited about three weeks ago and were promised cash in exchange for their participation. After the attack, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador suggested that it was García Harfuch’s willingness to take on organized crime that made him a target. “It has to do, without a doubt, with the work that is being carried out to guarantee peace and tranquility both in Mexico City and in


Historic Saharan dust event fouls air along Gulf Coast as next blast enters Caribbean

The most far-reaching and potent outbreak of dust from the Sahara Desert in decades has begun to significantly affect the Lower 48 states, with air quality deteriorating markedly on the Gulf Coast on Friday. The dust, which hitched a ride along a ribbon of east-to-west winds about 5,000 miles from the Atlantic coast of Senegal and Mauritania, contains enough small particles at low altitudes to make air quality unhealthy, particularly for those with preexisting medical conditions, such as lung and heart ailments and asthma. In Texas, which is battling a sustained increase in cases of the novel coronavirus, the simultaneous decline in air quality in highly populated areas such as Houston could add to the symptoms experienced by those who develop covid-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus. The plume, which first departed Africa on June 14, is part of a phenomenon known as the Saharan Air Layer (SAL) that develops every year around this time off the coast of Africa, but the current one is unusually intense and far-reaching and is setting records. The SAL typically forms over the Sahara Desert from the late spring into the early fall, and it moves pulses of dust cocooned in areas of dry air out into the tropical North Atlantic every few days. Hurricane forecasters closely track these outbreaks, because such air masses can prevent incipient storms from forming and choke existing storms, starving them of moisture, until they meet an early demise. It is common for dust blown from the Sahara in North Africa to reach the Lesser Antilles and Gulf Coast, where it can cause captivating sunsets. But it is rare for such events to dramatically lower visibility and lead to air quality problems, which have occurred with this event. It’s even rarer still for these events to affect so many areas, from the Leeward Islands to Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, the Gulf Coast and eventually much of the Southeast and possibly even the Mid-Atlantic states. Satellite imagery and surface air quality data show that the dust is probably present in moderate to high concentrations over the western Gulf of Mexico, overspreading much of eastern Texas, parts of Louisiana and Mississippi, and even moving into southern Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. A number of locations were beginning to report reductions in visibility commensurate with dust-induced haze, but more significant drops are likely as the dust begins to build northward. Meanwhile,


Colin Kaepernick is back in the news. Here’s how black athletes can inspire activism.

segregation. Others are more well-known. In 1967, champion boxer Muhammad Ali refused to be inducted into the military after being drafted to fight in the Vietnam War, losing his boxing license. During the 1968 Summer Olympics, track and field athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos bowed their heads and raised their fists during the medal ceremony to protest racial injustice in the United States. After Smith and Carlos were kicked out of Olympic Village, Tyus dedicated her gold medal to them in a show of solidarity. Do such protests make a difference? Our research suggests that Kaepernick’s protests inspired more African Americans to get politically involved, as we’ll explain below. How we did our research In a recently published article in Perspectives on Politics, we examine original data that we collected as part of the Black Voter Project, a nonpartisan survey research center that explores African American politics through online interviews randomly selected from a national panel. We examine data from a pilot study that consists of 511 standardized online interviews with African Americans in six battleground states — Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, North Carolina and Virginia — as well as California, collected in April 2017. We also draw on data from a national study of 1,545 standardized online interviews with African Americans in November and December 2019. Data for the Black Voter Project are drawn from a probability-based, nationally representative Dynata panel of African American adults. After controlling for such factors as ideology, partisanship, political knowledge, political trust, and a host of socio-demographic measures, we found that African Americans who strongly approved of Colin Kaepernick’s protest were significantly more likely than those who did not to say they were interested or involved in a number of political activities in the last 12 months, such as signing a petition, boycotting, demonstrating, attending a political meeting or contacting their representatives. What’s more, respondents who identified with the Black Lives Matter movement and approved of Kaepernick’s activism were the most likely to say they’d participated in politics in the last year. By accounting for both political knowledge and interest, and past political action sometime in life before 12 months earlier, we concluded attitudes toward Kaepernick’s protest action predicted respondents most recent political action. We conducted augmented regression-tests that confirmed our regression model did not suffer from reverse causality — in other words, that the inclination to protest was motivated by Kaepernick’s activism,


Have lockdowns really affected animal movement?

Hello, and happy weekend. Much has been made of unusual urban explorations by wildlife during the coronavirus shutdowns — pumas prowling in Santiago, Chile; mountain goats gallivanting in a Welsh village. Turtles were seen hatching in greater numbers on closed beaches. Bears seemed more relaxed in Yosemite National Park. The idea — and maybe our need to believe it — became so common this spring that “Nature is healing” became an Internet meme. Missing from this optimistic conclusion, though, have been data. Are wild animal populations growing? Are they expanding their ranges or claiming new territory? This week, scientists in the United Kingdom launched an initiative to examine those questions. They want to study how animals have responded to what they have deemed the “anthropause” — the widespread decline in human activity. (The correct prefix for “human,” they note, is “anthropo-,” but they figure this is close enough.) “There is a really valuable research opportunity here, one that’s been brought about by the most tragic circumstances, but it’s one we think we can’t afford to miss,” Christian Rutz, a professor at St. Andrews University, told BBC News. At the University of California-Davis, researchers who study roadkill were already taking advantage of it, and this week they came to a striking conclusion. Using traffic and collision data from California, Idaho and Maine, they found that “wildlife-vehicle conflict” dropped between 21 and 56 percent from early March to mid-April. That’s when most of the country was staying home and off the roads. If that continued, the report said, it could save the lives of 5,700 to 13,000 large mammals in those states each year — including 50 California mountain lions. Of course, it hasn’t continued. States are in various stages of reopening, and people are driving more. But maybe that kind of finding can have a longer term impact, Rutz told the BBC. “What if we see major impacts of our changes in road use, for example? We could use that to make small changes to our transport network that could have major benefits.” In other animal news this week: I want to hear from you! You can email me at karin.brulliard@washpost.com. Thanks, as always, for reading.


Coronavirus outbreak at a meatpacking plant exposes weakness in Germany’s covid-19 response

GÜTERSLOH, Germany — Yahya Süzan organizes cheap Eastern European labor for the German slaughterhouse industry, but he says he has nothing to do with the companies where the workers end up. “We load them into a small bus and they come here,” said Süzan, 62, as he relaxed outside a restaurant in the northwestern town of Gütersloh. He was dressed in a floral shirt and gold necklace and watch. He occasionally checked the phones on the table in front of him, one of them also gold. “Once they arrive,” he continued, “they have a job through the subcontractor and then work for Tönnies or another company.” Tönnies, whose hulking factory sits just a few miles down the road, is Europe’s largest slaughterhouse — and the site of a coronavirus outbreak that triggered Germany’s first snapback in restrictions. More than 1,500 workers have tested positive, contributing to a sharp rise in the country’s overall virus reproduction rate and forcing more than half a million people into a semi-lockdown. The meat-processing industry has emerged as the Achilles’ heel of Germany’s otherwise widely praised coronavirus response. Processing plants are thought to be especially conducive to viral spread, with their cold temperatures, limited ventilation and people close together shouting to one another over all the noise. Abattoirs from the United States to the Netherlands have been forced to close their doors because of coronavirus outbreaks. In Germany, the eight outbreaks linked to the meat industry have also focused scrutiny on murky hiring practices and substandard living conditions for laborers — largely from Romania, Bulgaria and Poland — who do the grueling work of slaughtering pigs for minimum wage. Even during the peak of the epidemic on the continent, when travel between countries was banned, exceptions were made so that workers could cross borders and ensure that Western Europe could continue to eat. Now, for many Gütersloh residents who have seen their schools, gyms, pools and bars closed once again, ire is directed both at Tönnies and government officials, who they complain have long failed to act on calls to clean up working practices. “There is a lot of anger and disappointment,” said Daniela Brey, 39, who was waiting in a snaking four-hour line for a voluntary coronavirus test, with her 6-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter in tow. “Tönnies is just a symptom of the problem,” she said. “The government has to do something.” Even


before the Tönnies outbreak, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government had hastily drafted new regulations to stop the use of subcontractors at Germany’s meat firms. The practice hampers the simplest question for coronavirus contact tracing: Who works there? Legislation must still be approved by parliament, and the meat lobby is pushing back, calling the move “arbitrary discrimination” and saying it is not a means for guaranteeing worker protection. If the legislation does come into force, it wouldn’t be until next year at the earliest — meaning that Germany will continue to face a threat of outbreaks that are difficult to trace. Inge Bultschnieder, a local bakery owner, said she’d been warning about the coronavirus risk at Tönnies for months, as workers were ferried around with little regard for social distancing. “The town was worried,” she said. Bultschnieder organized her first demonstration against Tönnies in 2013, after a hospital stay when she befriended a Bulgarian Tönnies worker in the next bed. But in this part of Germany, meat is money. Atop the slaughterhouse, a towering Tönnies sign — featuring a smiling pig, cow and steer, tails intertwined to form a heart — is a sky-high reminder of the source of much of the wealth here. The slaughterhouse sits on the outskirts of Rheda-Wiedenbrück, a postcard-perfect town a few miles from Gütersloh, the district’s main hub. At the site of the plant is Tönnies Arena: a 4,000-seat stadium used for local soccer matches. Clemens Tönnies, a self-made billionaire who runs the meatpacking firm, also owns Schalke, a Bundesliga soccer team. His company is a giant in the European meat industry, with an annual turnover of more than 7 billion euros (about $8 billion). It slaughters more than 20.8 million pigs a year, according to industry publications. Now, with the factory closed and more than 7,000 workers in quarantine, scores of distribution trucks sit idle, and European farmers are scrambling to find other places to slaughter their fattened livestock. Clemens Tönnies has called it an “existential crisis” for the firm he co-founded with his brother nearly 50 years ago. Initially, the company suggested the outbreak might be attributed to cross-border travel by workers. But Clemens Tönnies apologized and said he was “fully responsible.” He has resisted calls to resign. Last year, he was forced to temporarily step down from his position as president of the Schalke soccer club after comments roundly condemned as racist. Rather


Transcript: Veterans: Frontline Concerns

point that stood out to me was that 97 percent of warriors report owing more than $20,000 in auto loan and credit card debt. This suggests that earlier engagement might help warriors avoid this type of situation. Several VSOs are out there with a ton of transition experience and expertise looking to help veterans. We would recommend that DOD increase the servicemember awareness of these organizations and the specific services they offer, and we recommend further that DOD increase partnership with the VSO community as a whole to link veterans up with the resources that can greatly increase their chances of success in the civilian world. LTC. PLENZLER: So, Tom, we find that veterans come to us for connection to their peers and the greater veteran community, and they often miss a sense of tribe that they had in the military. So how does connection aid their transition? COL. KASTNER: Well, 80 percent of our veterans come to us first and foremost for connection. This support system sits atop the list of short-term priorities for those in transition. Our Wounded Warrior Project alumni and engagement teams host hundreds of events each year to address this warrior need. Warriors get to talk to their experiences and they can learn transition lessons from each other. LTC. PLENZLER: Awesome. So, Tom, we covered how many of the challenges veterans face in the military-to-civilian transition. And while military life is very team-focused, I know many veterans struggle with the reality that the transition to the civilian world is an individual activity and they need to translate and market their skills to be successful. So, what needs to be improved at the individual level to help set up transitioning veterans for success? COL. KASTNER: Well, the structure and framework now is good and is good for groups versus being individually oriented. I think we should look for opportunities to implement case management for transitioning service members when it's appropriate. LTC. PLENZLER: Well, Tom, thanks for all of your thoughts today. And, ladies and gentlemen, that’s about all the time we have. If you know a veteran who’s leaving the military, please let them know Wounded Warrior Project is here and ready to help. And you can find out more about how we can help, help veterans successfully transition, at woundedwarriorproject.org, or follow our advocacy on Twitter at @WWP_DC. So, thanks so much, Tom. And the


Weather company using tiny satellites inks deals with NASA, top European agencies to improve forecasts

new arrangement doesn’t actually ‘offload’ this risk, it just converts it to a critical supply chain risk, and one that is likely to be harder for NOAA to monitor and mitigate.” Spire’s main rival for the upcoming NOAA data contract is GeoOptics, which launched its first satellite in January 2018. It is headed by former NOAA administrator Conrad C. Lautenbacher and was also awarded a contract under NOAA’s pilot program to evaluate the accuracy and uses of private-sector occultation information for weather forecasting. In April, GeoOptics announced the launch of a processing system for its radio occultation data, which it says helps improve its accuracy and the speed at which it reaches users. Spire and GeoOptics aren’t the only providers of occultation data. A publicly funded program between the United States and Taiwan known as Cosmic-2 gathers such data as well. Spire and GeoOptics maintain that even more occultation profiles would be beneficial for forecasting and other uses. Platzer said Cosmic-2 is limited to the equatorial regions and generates 5,000 to 8,000 radio occultation profiles a day, whereas Spire’s network can generate more than 10,000 profiles a day and cover the whole globe. Outside experts unaffiliated with Spire said that while it is important that agencies such as NASA and NOAA engage with the rapidly growing private-sector satellite industry, it’s not clear how big the upsides will be. “We don’t quite know what the additional value of Spire or GeoOptics [data] will be yet,” said Frederick Carr, a professor emeritus at the University of Oklahoma. Mary M. Glackin, who serves as president of the American Meteorological Society but spoke in her capacity as a former executive at IBM’s the Weather Company, said Spire is noteworthy because it is also developing its own weather prediction model, which would allow it to get a clear internal idea of how its satellites are performing. She said that with any private weather company, it is important to question the value of the data. Companies tend to think their data is worth more than it really is, she said. For example, if an increase in the number of radio occultation profiles allows the Weather Company, which operates the popular website weather.com, to improve its three-day forecast by 2 percent, “how much more money can you really make on that?” she said. “It’s not at this point enabling whole new business lines or anything like that.”


Top U.S. women’s softball players are ‘heartbroken’ and ‘disgusted’ over a tweet to Trump

In addition to the current series, they are scheduled to play each other again at Space Coast Stadium in July, and three series have been scheduled next month at the Scrap Yard complex in Conroe, Tex. The likelihood of those games being played with Scrap Yard as host now appear extremely dim. On Wednesday, a group of fast-pitch clubs announced they were pulling out of an early-July event at the Scrap Yard facility, which features 10 fields. “The decision was made to acknowledge the hurt many players and coaches felt by recent comments made by the leadership of the Scrap Yard Dawgs program,” a tournament provider, Triple Crown Sports, said in a statement on behalf of the clubs. It added, “We believe sensitivity and tone are important ingredients of respect. Through sports we can help unify the many voices that deserve support in their right to protest and call for needed change as millions of people seek a new path for justice.” With the Tokyo Olympics postponed to 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic, which also caused the cancellation of this year’s Women’s College World Series, the games between Scrap Yard and USSSA Pride were highly anticipated. The contests would also provide the players much-needed financial support for their athletic careers, but Carda said, “At this point, it’s not about softball, it’s not about the game or any of that.” “It’s definitely bigger,” she told ESPN. “Do we play one game and try and make an impact that way? Do we do a series? … With whatever we decide to do, what are the steps where we can be super intentional with it and make a really big impact with what we’re trying to say about what happened?” However the Olympians and their club teammates proceed, it almost certainly won’t be with any further involvement from Scrap Yard. Stewart declared (via ESPN) she “will never play” for that organization again, given that the “trust is entirely broken.” “Lots of people think it’s about the flag, but it’s not about the flag whatsoever. It’s the fact that she projected her views and her political views on us,” Stewart said of May. “She took our voice away when no one knew about it.” Read more: Jack Del Rio creates a stir with Twitter activity; Redskins have no comment How Bubba Wallace ended up assigned to a garage stall containing a noose Boswell