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Anna-Sophie Harling will have responsibility over how big technology companies regulate harmful speech.

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I’m a Pandemic Dad Who’s Been Covering COVID-19. I Don’t Know How to Think About the Risk Anymore

I’ll say this for the pre-vaccine days: it was far easier to think about risk when the only sensible option—for those lucky enough for it to even be an option—was to hunker down, avoid as much contact with other people as possible, and wait out the storm.

But a year of self-imposed isolation, fueled partially by fear and partially by a moral imperative to not infect others, has a way of scrambling your brain in a way that makes it hard to figure out what’s “safe” now that we’ve entered this strange, half-vaccinated liminal phase. After getting my shots this past spring, it took me weeks to feel anything resembling normal while spending time with family and friends indoors again. Now, with the Delta variant fueling a potential fourth wave while only half the country is vaccinated and many people are acting as if the pandemic is over, it’s harder than ever to gauge the risk to myself and, more importantly, my nearly two-year-old son.
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It would help if you and I could think this through together. I, a 32-year-old vaccinated man with no relevant pre-existing conditions, am very safe from developing severe COVID-19. Yes, breakthrough cases happen—they were always going to happen; the vaccines were judged on their ability to prevent serious disease, not infection—but they are rare, and serious cases among the inoculated are rarer still. The result: this has become, as U.S. President Joe Biden recently put it, a “pandemic of the unvaccinated;” nearly all the latest deaths are among those who didn’t get their shots.

The logical side of my brain knows all this, but the anxiety-driven corners of it also know that breakthrough cases still happen, and there’s a non-zero chance I could be one of those cases, and wind up very sick, or die, or end up with inexplicable Long COVID symptoms that plague me for months, years, or the rest of my life, making it harder to be the father I want to be. My answer to all this is to keep avoiding large indoor crowds, to steer clear of anyone I know to be unvaccinated, and to start wearing my mask at the grocery store again, CDC guidance otherwise be damned. I’ve gotten used to the hermit life—a little too used to it, probably—and another few months of laying low won’t kill me.

Judging the risk to my son, unfortunately, is far harder. Like all Americans under 12, he remains unvaccinated, though I would bring him in for the shot in a heartbeat given the chance. Children mostly do not get seriously sick from COVID-19; only about 350 have died of the virus in the U.S. so far, per the American Academy of Pediatrics, a vanishingly small case fatality rate of 0.01%. But, again, it does happen, and every headline I see about an eight-, six-, or three-year-old who died from a serious case makes me want to take my son, climb into a doomsday bunker and return only when it’s time for his bar mitzvah. That childhood COVID-19 fatalities are skyrocketing in Indonesia is a particularly harrowing data point, though many children there, and in other low-income parts of the world, are likely at higher risk because, tragically, they suffer from poor access to health care, malnutrition, and other factors that make them more vulnerable to disease in general.

In talking with other parents with kids around my son’s age, it’s become clear that to become a first-time parent in the pandemic is a unique experience, and one that warps how you think about parenting and risk tolerance, possibly forever. My purely anecdotal findings suggest that parents of slightly older kids—kids who became actualized human beings with likes, dislikes and aptitudes well before COVID-19 sent everything sideways—are generally a little more willing to accept the (again, very low) risk the virus poses to their children; they have already learned the inevitable lesson that you can’t protect your kids from everything scary forever. My fellow pandemic first-time parents, meanwhile, are—again, speaking generally—freaked right the hell out.

I suspect that becoming a parent always changes how you think about risk, both regarding yourself and the tiny blob you’ve suddenly been tasked with caring for—regardless of the historical and geographical context. But there is probably something unique about entering parenthood at a moment when “risk tolerance” became the defining question of human existence.

My wife and I have, for now, only slightly recalibrated how we think about the risk our son now faces. Earlier this summer, when cases were low and Delta wasn’t a concern in the U.S., we took him to the zoo; we probably wouldn’t do that now. He’s still in day care, something I wrestle with every day. He clearly loves “school,” as we call it, and he’s bringing home new skills (he recently started, out of nowhere, walking backwards) and words almost every day, marking significant milestones in his physical and mental development. But exposure to COVID-19 in that environment seems inevitable, despite the efforts his day care center is making to keep the kids safe, and it tears me up inside that there’s a potential future in which he gets very sick because mom and dad needed to work in order to feed, clothe, and shelter him—and, ironically enough, pay for daycare.

I have more or less accepted that the draw-dropping transmissibility of the Delta variant means that I, my son and my wife will all probably be exposed at some point or another, no matter the effort we make to avoid it. When and if that happens, I have to trust that the vaccines will protect my wife and I, while my son will fend it off by virtue of his age. I’m not throwing caution totally to the wind—we’re not taking him to crowded indoor spaces like museums, and I’m avoiding such spaces myself. But small visits with vaccinated family members are very much on the table—indeed, I’m currently writing this from my in-laws’ basement; my son is upstairs with Nana and Opa.

Our thinking may change if the situation gets dramatically worse, or if new data suggest a greater risk to kids (hopefully, the CDC’s revised masking guidance will make life safer for unvaccinated children). But this virus has already taken too much from him, and it wouldn’t be fair to once again totally isolate him from his loved ones, no matter how badly I just want to protect him at all costs. We are, after all, doing other ostensibly dangerous stuff with him, like driving, an activity that in 2018 resulted in the deaths of 636 children in the U.S., per the CDC, about double the number known to have died of COVID-19 so far. I just hope that’s the right decision.

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Team USA Wins First-Ever Women’s 3×3 Basketball Olympic Gold

The Team USA 3×3 basketball squad—featuring WNBA players Stephanie Dolson of the Chicago Sky, Kelsey Plum and Jackie Young of the Las Vegas Aces and Allisha Gray of the Dallas Wings—won the first-ever women’s gold medal in Olympic 3×3 basketball on Wednesday Night at the Aomi Urban Sports Park in Tokyo, getting by the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC), 18-15. China squeezed by France, 16-14, for the bronze.

From the outset, Team USA controlled the game; and showed off the balance of its attack. On the first U.S. possession, Gray took it hard to the basket to draw a foul. Plum hit lefty scoop shot; her favorite trick. The 6’5″ Dolson—who goes by the Instagram handle is “bigmamastef”—used her size to grab an offensive rebound and score. She finished with nine rebounds, each one seemingly more crucial than the last. The U.S. rushed out to a 12-5 lead, but Russia fought back, to put it to 15-12 with 1:30 left. After Plum missed a three-pointer with 1:16 left, Dolson positioned herself to grab another offensive rebound. She got fouled and hit two free throws to gave Team USA a 17-12 lead with 1:16 to go. In 3×3, a five-point advantage at that point in the game is enormous, as two-point shots are worth one-point and three-pointers worth two. After Russia cut it to 3, 17-14, with 44 seconds left, Dolson, of course, had another rebound and putback that essentially sealed the game.
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The Americans were more aggressive; they went to the foul line 11 times, converting eight free throws. Russia did not go the foul line once. The U.S. out-rebounded Russia 21-11.

After the game, a relaxed, smiling Dolson, towel hanging over her left shoulder, waved and smiled to the Team USA support staff. For the Russians, it was too much Big Mama Stef.

3x3 Basketball - Olympics: Day 5 — Christian Petersen—Getty ImagesStefanie Dolson, Jacquelyn Young, Kelsey Plum and Allisha Gray of Team USA celebrate victory and winning the gold medal in the 3×3 Basketball competition at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Aomi Urban Sports Park on July 28, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan.

Two of Russia’s players, Evgina and Olga Frolkina, are twins. Tonight was their 24th birthday. Afterwards, a small group in the crowd sang to them. They’ll celebrate with silver.

Three-on-three—officially 3×3, with the “x,” in the Olympic lexicon—debuted as a quirky Olympic curiosity in Tokyo. Goofy music blared during games: few expect to hear Pat Benatar’s “I Love Rock and Roll” during Olympic action. The public address announcer also offered commentary. “Niiiice pass,” he said during the women’s final. Games are 10 minutes long: the team that grabs a rebound dribbles or passes out to the three-point line, then goes on the offensive attack. With the 12-second shot clock, no team can milk a time; a comeback always felt possible. The games were fast, furious, and fun, giving the Games a little playground vibe.

The games hinge on player movement and reward crisp passing and unselfish play. Clever screens lead to layups. The refs let a lot more bumping go. With fewer defenders clogging the middle, the flow is freer.

3×3 basketball proved it belonged at the Olympics. And the U.S. women took advantage. As of Tokyo’s Tuesday night, the sport gave the United States an 11th gold medal; the Americans trails only Japan (13) and China (12) in the race for most gold at the Games.

This Is Who Will Replace Simone Biles in the Olympic Gymnastics All-Around Final

When Simone Biles withdrew from the gymnastics team event at the Tokyo Summer Olympic Games on July 27, her teammates and coaches scrambled to fill in for her on the spot, since Biles made the sudden decision after the competition had started. Sunisa Lee and Jordan Chiles stepped in and both pulled off impressive routines with little notice — and no warm up time — to help the US women earn silver.

Biles announced a day later that she is also withdrawing from the all-around event, the marquee competition for women’s gymnastics. Biles is the reigning Olympic all-around champion, but won’t be defending her title after admitting to struggling mentally with the pressures of competing in Tokyo.
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Who will replace her? It’s not just a matter of swapping in a teammate. Biles was the top qualifier, and only the gymnasts with the top 24 scores from the qualifying round are eligible for the all-around. In addition, in order to give as many countries as possible a chance to participate, only two gymnasts per country can compete. For the U.S., that meant Biles and Sunisa Lee, who qualified with the third highest score.

Jade Carey, one of the additional members of the U.S. squad who was not part of the four-woman team, qualified ninth, which means she will replace Biles in the all-around.

Carey took advantage of a new Olympic qualifying system in which she participated in the Apparatus World Cup Series over the last three years, and her scores assured her of an individual invitation to the Olympic squad; with that individual spot, however, she could not compete in the team event. Strong on vault and floor, Carey, an Arizona native who trains with her father Brian, is a consistent competitor.

Biles also qualified for all four event finals, and said she will take each day at a time before deciding whether she will compete in those events. Only the top eight qualifiers compete in each event final, with a maximum of two per country. If she does decide to withdraw from those as well, here’s who will replace her on each apparatus.

Vault

MyKayla Skinner, like Carey, is an individual member of the women’s gymnastics squad, and could not compete in the team event. She did compete on all apparatus for the all-around, however, which determines in which event finals she can participate. A strong vaulter, her scores unfortunately did not qualify her for any of the event finals because two other teammates had higher scores. If Biles does not compete on vault, however, Skinner will step in since she finished seventh in the qualification round, and the top eight gymnasts are eligible.

Floor

One of Biles’ teammates cannot replace her on floor, since none placed higher than the reserve athlete, Jennifer Gadirova of Great Britain who will have a chance to compete on floor if Biles withdraws.

Uneven bars

Same goes for this event; the reserve athlete is Melanie de Jesus dos Santos of France, because the US athlete with the next highest score after Biles and Lee is Jade Carey, but she finished 10^th.

Beam

Japan’s Urara Ashikawa would step in on this event as the reserve athlete, also because no US athlete finished higher than Ashikawa. Skinner, the next highest scoring US gymnast, finished 27^th.

Wednesday, 28 July 2021

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Atlanta Spa Shooter Signs Plea Deal, Pleads Guilty to 4 Killings

(CANTON, Ga.) — A Georgia man accused of killing eight people at three Atlanta-area massage businesses was pleading guilty in Cherokee County on Tuesday, hoping for a sentence of life without parole to the first four of the shooting deaths.

Robert Aaron Long still faces the death penalty if convicted in four more shooting deaths in Atlanta, where he faces charges of domestic terrorism with a hate crime enhancement in addition to murder. Long is white and six of the victims were women of Asian descent.

Long walked through the massage business in Woodstock “shooting anyone and everyone he saw,” District Attorney Shannon Wallace said.
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Massage Business Shootings — Crisp County Sheriff’s Office—APRobert Aaron Long in a March 16 booking photo.

A judge was hearing a prosecutor describe details of his crimes. The prosecutor said the 22-year-old defendant has signed a plea deal admitting to all of the charges in Cherokee County, where he was accused of malice murder, felony murder, attempt to commit murder and aggravated assault.

Police have said the attacks began when Long shot and killed four people, three of them women and two of Asian descent, at Youngs Asian Massage just before 5 p.m. on March 16, 2020. He also shot and wounded a fifth person, they say. Long then drove south to Atlanta, where he shot and killed three women at Gold Spa before going across the the street to Aromatherapy Spa and fatally shooting another woman, police have said. All of the Atlanta victims were women of Asian descent.

Those killed at the Cherokee County spa were: Xiaojie “Emily” Tan, 49; Daoyou Feng, 44; Delaina Yaun, 33; and Paul Michels, 54. The Atlanta victims were: Suncha Kim, 69; Soon Chung Park, 74; Hyun Jung Grant, 51; and Yong Ae Yue, 63.

Long is scheduled to appear again next month in Fulton County, where District Attorney Fani Willis filed notice that she intends to seek a hate crime sentence enhancement along with the death penalty, based on the actual or perceived race, national origin, sex and gender of the four women killed in Atlanta.

Georgia’s new hate crimes law does not provide for a stand-alone hate crime. After a person is convicted of an underlying crime, a jury must determine whether it’s motivated by bias, which carries an additional penalty. The 19-count Fulton County indictment includes charges of murder, felony murder, aggravated assault and domestic terrorism.

Police said that after the shootings at the two Atlanta spas, Long got back into his car and headed south.

By then, Long’s parents had called authorities to help after recognizing their son in still images from security video that the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office posted on social media. His parents were already tracking his movements through an application on his phone, the prosecutor said, and that enabled authorities to track their son down Interstate 75. State troopers and sheriff’s deputies spotted his SUV, and one of them forced Long to spin to a stop by bumping his vehicle. Long then surrendered to authorities in rural Crisp County, about 140 miles (225 kilometers) south of Atlanta.

Long told police his attack was not racially motivated, and a Cherokee sheriff’s spokesman said it did not appear to be a hate crime, prompting widespread skepticism and outrage.

“He apparently has an issue, what he considers a sex addiction, and sees these locations as something that allows him to go to these places, and it’s a temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate,” Cherokee sheriff’s Capt. Jay Baker initially told reporters.

Baker also drew criticism for saying Long had “a really bad day,” and was removed from the case.

State Rep. Bee Nguyen, the first Vietnamese American to serve in the Georgia House and a frequent advocate for women and communities of color, said the shootings appeared to be at the “intersection of gender-based violence, misogyny and xenophobia.” And Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said that regardless of the shooter’s motivation, “it is unacceptable, it is hateful and it has to stop.”

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Mena Suvari Is Ready to Own Her Past

Many of us know Mena Suvari as the wholesome choir girl from the 1999 comedy American Pie or the teen who becomes the object of Kevin Spacey’s infatuation in the 1999 drama American Beauty. Yet after decades of portraying fictional women, Suvari, 42, is ready to open up about her own life. In her new memoir, The Great Peace, Suvari details the breakdown of her family following a childhood of material abundance, reveals that she was repeatedly sexually abused beginning at the age of 12 and shares the experience of going through multiple toxic relationships as she tried to find stability in adulthood.
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The opportunity to act and find connections through roles in film and TV, Suvari writes, helped to pull her through some of the darker moments. But her continued silence, especially around the abuse she suffered as a young woman working in Hollywood, took its toll. She recounts in the book that for years, she used drugs to numb her feelings, coping with marijuana and, for a time, meth.

In 2018, Suvari writes, she found an old journal and works of art she’d made as a young woman in a long-ignored storage unit. The notes, poems and drawings prompted memories of experiences that Suvari realized she needed to share in order to heal. Here, Suvari talks with TIME about releasing her first book and finally opening up. “I’ve been joking it’s like therapy with the world,” she says.

The Great Peace includes several sections where you share poetry and diary entries you wrote as a teenager. What was it like to revisit your old self?

I found this bin, which had everything, even VHS tapes and old press clippings from my whole career. When I opened my diary, I was surprised to see there was just one entry in the middle of it. Then, there was a folded yellow piece of construction paper I’d made into a card and decorated with angels on top. It was my adieu, my farewell—I’d written my suicide note. I had forgotten about that. But when I found it, I remembered that exact moment, the space I’d been in. I was saddened and shocked, and yet it was kind of funny to me because I realized my life only got worse after I wrote that. That was the beginning of the process for me.

You write about all kinds of difficult experiences—from being sexually coerced to overcoming drug addiction to feeling abandoned—that you are discussing in public for the first time. Why was right now the time to come forward with the truth?

It’s just something I felt like I needed to do. This book has been a couple years in the making. When I started, I’d gotten to that place in my life—I’d met my husband, I was ready to make personal changes. I was definitely inspired by #MeToo and this environment of sharing that felt new at the time. I realized simple things, like, we’re not alone. We have the right to talk about our experiences.

With the book, I’m also trying to address what it was like to even consider these experiences and how I can label them now. It’s about feeling like I am allowed to consider that I was abused. I was always comparing the abuse to something else I thought was worse, telling myself it wasn’t that bad and that I really had nothing to say.

From your roles in American Pie to American Beauty, you talk often about how working as an actor became a lifeline amid the chaos of your life. Was there a project in particular that inspired you as you wrote?

Art saved my life. Work has always given me the opportunity to learn more about myself and grow. The types of projects I worked on really challenged me and put me in a space of being ready to share. One is Grace and Grit, based on Treya Wilber and her battle for her life and for love. That put me in a very different space, spiritually, in touch with the magic that’s all around us.

Read More: How Celebrity Memoirs Got So Good

Something that stuck with me was how adults in your life didn’t really seem to know how to talk to you, how to ask if you were doing okay. I know you recently had a child, and am curious about how you plan to address difficult conversations with him.

It’s about trying to stay as open and as aware as possible and asking questions: How are you doing? How are you feeling? What’s going on right now? That’s what most important. That’s why I’m fine with sharing all of this—I’d like to use my life experiences to hopefully be aware and be present and maybe notice signs. But it’s not a black-and-white thing. I’m not trying to make this a blame game or live in regret. I’m just offering my perspective on what it was like to be someone at that age who needed more guidance in that moment.

Everyone deserves to be noticed.

Communication is the most important thing. That’s why we’re here: to share and learn and grow with one another. Maybe someone hears this story and they see how I became detached. No one asked me about my drug use or if I got a bladder infection at age 12 because I had sex. No one noticed, and it became harder for me to be rescued. We think we’re alone. I just felt, “I’ll suffer silently.”

You write about shaving your head for a role around the same time paparazzi hounded Britney Spears for shaving hers, and feeling like you understood her despite living in very different circumstances. What are your thoughts on how women in the spotlight are treated these days versus a couple decades ago?

It’s great we’re noticing these moments now and that we’re having these conversations. But we still have a lot of work to do. I used that example because I happened to be working on a film where a character shaves her head, and I cut my hair in real life. To everyone else, it seemed like I’d lost my mind. I’m a woman, so I must have just lost it. That was shocking to me, and I was trying to figure out what my value was in conjunction with what everyone else thought it was. In the broader conversation, we’ve got a long way to go. Let’s move forward and not forget about what we’ve learned about awareness and other people’s rights.

If you or someone you know may be contemplating suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 or text HOME to 741741 to reach the Crisis Text Line. In emergencies, call 911 or seek care from a local hospital or mental-health provider.

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Japan Beats Team USA 2-0 to Win Second-Straight Softball Olympic Gold

(YOKOHAMA, Japan) — Japan won its second straight Olympic softball gold medal, beating the United States 2-0 Tuesday in an emotional repeat of their 2008 victory in Beijing that again left the Americans in tears.

Yukiko Ueno took a one-hitter into the sixth inning five days after her 39th birthday, and Japan snuffed out an American rally attempt with an acrobatic double play in the sixth inning that will long be replayed.

Japan led 2-0 when Michelle Moultrie singled leading off the sixth off hard-throwing 20-year-old left-hander Miu Goto.

Goto dealt Hayley McCleney her first strikeout of the Olympics with a 69 mph pitch at the hands, allowed a single to Janie Reed.
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With two on and one out, Amanda Chichester lined a rocket off the left wrist of third baseman Yu Yamatmoto. The ball ricocheted to perfectly positioned shortstop Mana Atsumi, who stuck out her glove for a backhand spear, then made a jump throw to second baseman Yuka Ichiguchi to double up Moultrie.

Reed then made a leaping catch at the left-field wall to rob Yamato Fujita of a two-run homer in the bottom half.

Ueno (2-0) re-entered the side in the seventh and retired the Americans in order, getting Delaney Spaulding on a foul out to the catcher that set off a celebration.

No. 9 batter Mana Atsumi had a run-scoring infield hit in the fourth inning and Fujita lined an RBI single off Monica Abbott in the fifth in building a 2-0 lead.

Ueno improved to 9-1 in her Olympic career, allowing two hits, striking out five and walking two. Reed tripled off the glove of Eri Yamada and the center-field wall with one out in the first. That was the closest the U.S. came to scoring.

Abbott, relieving a day before her 36th birthday, and 38-year-old U.S. starter Cat Osterman were the last holdovers from the U.S. team that lost to Japan 3-1 in a stinging upset 4,723 days earlier and 1,300 miles distant. Osterman gave up the first two runs of that game and Abbott the last.

While the Americans wore blue shirts and tights in a contrast to the red shirts and shorts of 2008, the result was the same: Japan won its second softball gold rather than the U.S. adding to its victories of 1996, 2000 and 2004.

Before 34,046 mostly empty seats Yokohama Stadium, second-ranked Japan pushed across the first earned runs off the top-ranked Americans in the six-game tournament. The U.S. offense sputtered as it did throughout the Olympics, totaling just nine runs.

Ueno allowed two hits, struck out five and walked two in six innings while combining with Goto on a three-hitter.

Osterman, who came out of retirement with the goal of adding a gold medal to the one she earned in 2004, allowed two hits in two scoreless innings. With six straight right-handed hitters due up in the third, U.S. coach Ken Eriksen replaced the left-hander with 28-year-old right-hander Ally Carda (0-1).

Fujita lined a single off the diving attempt of second baseman Ali Aguilar leading off the fourth, was sacrificed to second and took third on a comebacker.

Yuka Ichiguchi walked, and Eriksen went to the mound with Atsumi, the left-handed-hitting No. 9 batter, coming up. Carda stayed in, and and Atsumi hit a slow two-hopper to second and slid in ahead of Aguilar’s throw as Fujita scored.

Yu Yamamoto singled with two outs in the fifth, and Abbott came in and threw a wild pitch, then allowed Fujita to line a single into right for a 2-0 lead.

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What Jeff Bezos’ Philanthropy Tells Us About His New Priorities—and What Change They May Bring

Money is power, so when the world’s richest man begins to spend his fortune, it’s worth paying attention to what he’s doing. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and newly minted pseudo-astronaut, has a lot of money to spend. On July 19, the day before he took a 10 minute joyride 66 miles (106 km) above the earth, his wealth increased by $13 billion , thanks to a bump in the Amazon’s share price. That flight cost $5.5 billion which, as global change groups hastened to point out, could have paid for a lot of global change. But for Bezos, it was not quite half the previous day’s wages.
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Bezos announced in his post-flight press conference that he was donating $100 million to two high profile founders of non-profits: the celebrity chef (and former TIME cover subject) José Andrés, and Van Jones, the former Obama green jobs czar, CNN commentator and prominent climate change activist, to do as he said “what they want with.” The two donations were the inaugurating gifts of a Courage and Civility Award that Bezos was creating. “We need unifiers and not vilifiers,” Bezos said. “We need people who argue hard and act hard for what they believe. But they do that always with civility and never ad hominem attacks. Unfortunately, we live in a world where this is too often not the case.”

Until recently, Bezos had drawn considerable criticism for his desultory appetite for philanthropy. Polls make it clear that since America’s tax system largely protects income that is accrued via the growth of existing wealth and thus rewards the rich, its inhabitants also expect that their richer fellow citizens should be generous in spreading around their surplus. However, the very wealthy are also criticized when they do donate money because their money effects social change and that change needs to be thoughtfully managed. Perhaps because of this dichotomy, Bezos has been long on promises but delivered about $1.5 billion in actual funds, about 0.7% of his wealth. He is also one of the few mega-wealthy individuals who has not signed the Giving Pledge, a promise to give at least half of one’s wealth away.

Jeff Bezos is using his time to go out and zoom around outer space. Good for him. Poll after poll shows the American people want him to pay his fair share of taxes back here on Earth.

Let's get it done.

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 22, 2021

There are those in the philanthropy industry who don’t find his reticence to spend unreasonable. “The fact that he didn’t do a lot of philanthropy up until now is kind of understandable,” says Brad Smith, president of Candid, an organization that monitors the charitable sector. “If you look at the old generation of philanthropists like Rockefeller and Carnegie, they pretty much built their businesses and then at some ripe age retired and became philanthropists.”

Others feel he still has some figuring out to do. “The most significant thing about Bezos’ philanthropy is the weird tension between its scale and its strange lack of consequence,” says Benjamin Soskis, who researches philanthropy for the Urban Institute. “He’s committed a large amount of money. But it still feels very, very half-baked.” Compared to the approach taken by Bill Gates or Bezos’ ex-wife MacKenzie Scott, who has also made headlines for her recent giving—or even Bezos’ own approach to his business— the billionaire’s giving feels slapdash, says Soskis. “I have a sense of an inchoate donor, somebody whose philanthropic identity has not fully congealed yet.”

Let the record show that Bezos has been thinking about how to give his money away at least since 2017, when he asked for public input about how to operate “at the intersection of urgent need and lasting impact.” His two new recipients each seem to fulfill one of those aims: Andrés is known for arriving at the sites of recent disasters and feeding people with his organization World Central Kitchen; and Jones has started several non-profits, most notably Dream Corps, that seek to move the needle on such big sociological issues as climate change, inequitable incarceration and racial equity.

Request for ideas… pic.twitter.com/j6D68mhseL

— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) June 15, 2017

It’s not apparent whether Jones and Andrés applied for the funding, although Bezos had earlier pledged to support Jones’ environmental organization. It also comes with very few strings attached, which communicates a high level of trust in the grantees. “You bet on me and I appreciate it,” Jones told Bezos. “And I appreciate you for lifting the ceilings off people’s dreams.” This reminded many in the philanthropic world of Scott’s style of giving.

But the similarities between the former couple end there. Scott tends to make her gifts quietly, with an almost reluctant don’t-look-at-me post on Medium to announce the gifts, while Bezos announces his at moments of intense public scrutiny. And while Scott spreads her wealth with precision, Bezos tends to use shock-and-awe dumps of money. A week before unloading $100 million each on Jones and Andrés, he committed $200 million to D.C.’s Smithsonian museum and last year made the largest single philanthropic pledge of 2020, launching the Earth Fund, a climate change charity, with a promise of $10 billion. It joins the Bezos Day One fund, announced with a $2 billion pledge in 2018, (when he was still married to Scott,) which addresses homelessness and education.

This blockbuster approach of announcing massive initiatives and then figuring out the details is not necessarily better or worse, say some philanthropic experts. “I think he’s thinking about the size of the gifts in terms of messaging,” says Candid’s Smith. “When he drops these $100 million chunks, he’s making a big statement about climate change, just like he seemed to be making a big statement [on July 20] about civility.” There’s a precedent for this too, notes Smith. “We’ve seen this at different moments in history with philanthropy when governments and societies seem to be in gridlock and at an impasse, philanthropists will step forward and say ‘Dammit, this is important.'” Ted Turner did this in 2000, when Congress could not agree whether to pay the money the U.S. owed to the U.N.

One thing is clear about Bezos’ spending priorities. He sees a future in space both for his commercial and philanthropic investment. His space tourism business is off to a robust start. And buried in the details of the 2020 Earth Fund grants are the finer points of how his investments are to be spent. The World Resources Institute got $100 million partly to “to develop a satellite-based monitoring system to advance natural climate solutions around the world” and the Environmental Defense Fund got the same amount, to help further the “completion and launch of MethaneSAT, a satellite that will… locate and measure sources of methane pollution around the world.” He sees space travel as a crucial part of solving the climate puzzle.

This is not to say that Bezos is not also splashing around some money on problems right here on Earth. But it does not seem to be his first love. “You can make a valid case for space philanthropy if you’re not seen as ignoring the rest of the Earthbound populace,” says the Urban Institute’s Soskis. He is reminded of a concept Charles Dickens advanced in Bleak House: telescopic philanthropy. “People love to direct their philanthropic gaze to foreign shores as a way of ignoring what’s proximate and potentially most implicates them,” says Soskis. “I think Bezos has opened himself up to that critique.”

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Vaccine inequality threatens global economic recovery, IMF warns - Financial Times

Vaccine inequality threatens global economic recovery, IMF warns Financial Times
Britain's economic recovery set to outstrip the G7 The Times
IMF predicts UK economic bounce-back this year to match resurgent US Sky News
Vaccine access deepens divide between rich and poor nations BBC News
Economy to surge 7pc and beat eurozone as IMF hails vaccine-fuelled recovery Telegraph.co.uk
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The C.D.C. will recommend that some vaccinated people wear masks indoors again.

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Tuesday, 27 July 2021

The U.S. Women’s Gymnastics Team Is Still the Favorite in Tokyo. But There’s Little Room for Error

Coming into the Tokyo Olympics, most of the gymnastics community agreed about one thing—Team USA’s women were the ones to beat. As the reigning Olympic champions, the U.S. is returning to defend its title with one of the greatest gymnasts in the sport, Simone Biles. The team also builds off a legacy of Olympic titles that dates back to 1996. Couple that with funding and organizational struggles in former powerhouse countries like Romania and China in recent years—this is the second Olympics at which Romania failed to qualify a team—and the U.S. is practically a shoo-in.

But as the qualification round at the Ariake Gymnastics Center in Tokyo made abundantly clear on July 25, much of the strength of the Team USA women’s gymnastics squad rests squarely on Biles’ shoulders. She stepped out of bounds in two of her best events—floor and vault. Other teammates struggled as well, which put the U.S. more than a point behind the Russian athletes (competing as the Russian Olympic Committee) in qualifying for the team event.
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Gymnastics - Artistic - Olympics: Day 2 — Ezra Shaw—Getty ImagesSimone Biles of Team USA falls out of bounds during a vault during Women’s Qualification on day two of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Ariake Gymnastics Centre on July 25, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan.

The good news is that the qualification scores are now erased, and the team competition starts anew on July 27, with three gymnasts from each of the top eight qualifying countries competing on each of the four apparatus. All three scores will count, which means there is little room for error.

In such a scenario, the best strategy is to build, from the four members of the team, the specific trio with the highest potential of scoring well on each event. For the U.S., that’s likely Biles, whose high level of difficulty in nearly every event helps to boost the team’s score, and Sunisa Lee, and, depending on the apparatus, either Grace McCallum or Jordan Chiles. While Chiles finished higher than McCallum at the recent national and Olympic Trial competitions, she struggled on beam in the qualification round, and received low execution scores on uneven bars. So it will be up to USA Gymnastics’ officials to determine which lineup on each apparatus gives the U.S. the best chance for a high score.

Team USA’s closest competition will likely come from the Russian athletes, a blend of experienced and younger gymnasts who turned in solid performances to qualify in the top spot. Angelina Melnikova, who was part of the Russian team that earned silver behind Team USA in Rio and at the last two world championships, leads a team of first-time Olympians in Vladislava Urazova, Viktoria Listunova and Liliia Akhaimova. While the U.S. has a slight advantage on three of the four events with more difficult, and therefore, higher scoring potential on floor, vault, and beam, the Russians have more challenging uneven bars routines on average (Urazova is the world junior champion in the event). The Russians could, as they did in the qualification round, amass enough points with consistent routines to pass the U.S. if Team USA struggles in any way.

That’s not likely to happen, but the qualification round was a reminder to the gold-medal favorite Americans that no gymnast, or team, is invincible, and part of being the favorite is managing the added burden of expectation and responsibility. “I truly do feel like I have the weight of the world on my shoulders at times,” Biles wrote on Instagram after qualifications. “The Olympics is no joke!”

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Wednesday, 28 July 2021

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