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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Rise of the Thielists</strong> - Has the Republican Party found its post-Trump ideology? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-populism/the-rise-of-the-thielists">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Somebody Should Tell Kevin McCarthy That Trump Is Still Lying About the 2020 Election</strong> - What the House Minority Leaders role in ousting Liz Cheney tells us about the troubled future of the Republic. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/somebody-should-tell-kevin-mccarthy-that-trump-is-still-lying-about-the-2020-election">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Why Its So Important That Twelve-Year-Olds Can Now Get a COVID-19 Vaccine</strong> - We are in a pandemic from which, as much as one might wish it, children have never been exempt. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-its-so-important-that-twelve-year-olds-can-now-get-a-covid-19-vaccine">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Japans Olympic-Sized Problem</strong> - The governments inept response to the coronavirus pandemic has led to widespread discontent about hosting the Games. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/japans-olympic-sized-problem">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Saying Her Name</strong> - Remains that were found to be those of a Black teen who was killed by Philadelphia police in 1985 were treated as an anthropological specimen. How was her identity known and then forgotten? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/essay/saying-her-name">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>What we owe and are owed</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="An illustration shows a man looking in the mirror at another version of himself, like a funhouse mirror." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/RcumTtCXadnqz4i7K-J_e_IXOWU=/407x0:2847x1830/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69265595/Fairness_Family_Final_Revised.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Carlos Basabe for Vox
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Kiese Laymon on Black revision, repayment, and renewal.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HV97af">
</p>
<div class="c-float-left">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/YYgW4HsU995yniG4Y5QuEoQvF0Y=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21899595/VOX_The_Highlight_Box_Logo_Horizontal.png"/>
</figure>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="U5gRuI">
Part of <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/22424892/the-fairness-issue">The Fairness Issue</a> of <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight"><strong>The Highlight</strong></a>, our home for ambitious stories that explain our world.
</p>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="SRZ1UZ"/>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ArJgD9">
Two days after an officer shot MaKhia Bryant in the back, and one day after an officer shot Andrew Brown in the back of the head, I asked my friend, Ray Gunn, if he was tired of talking to white folks about Black death. Gunn told me he didnt understand my question.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uQclY0">
I repeated it.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ta7XCv">
Gunn asked if I was getting paid for these conversations I was having with white Americans about Black death. I told him sometimes. He asked me why I would ever talk to white folks about Black death if I wasnt getting paid.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eF9IB7">
“You know,” I told him, “like on social media …”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="g6V5yQ">
Gunn shook his head.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3gGaE4">
“Or sometimes, you know, folks call you because they …”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EcnsAA">
Gunn sucked his teeth.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yHWM9f">
“I mean, Im a teacher and you know, like …”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Io1vuv">
Gunn looked lightweight disgusted.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sy9Evt">
He reminded me that he was a teacher too. “But that,” he said, “thats not Black teacher work. Thats white family work.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uO49QJ">
Gunn told me he hadnt had an actual conversation with a white person in 14 years, not out of protest but because there just werent any white folks at his job, in his house, at his church, on his social media, or in his phone. “Now, if the check was right,” he said, “Id be a grinning, hustling-ass race whisperer. Id be talking to everything white. Rice. Milk. Pillows.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="R5pVYa">
I fell out laughing.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ljSerc">
Gunn and I met in college in Jackson, Mississippi, 28 years ago. I was a first-year student from Jackson and Gunn was a super-senior from Winona by way of Chicago. The first day I met Gunn, he was posted up in the quad, setting up a picnic for his partner, V.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XdHENz">
Later that night, during our first conversation, he taught me how to make sure the ironed quilt you set out for your partner smelled like their second-favorite scent. “That means you gotta ask them what they favorite scents are,” he told me. “If the quilt aint ironed and smelling right, wash it and iron it again. Dont use starch though, unless thats her second-favorite smell. But you gotta ask.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DNjMGk">
Gunn knew he was talking about love.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NSNqpL">
I thought he was talking about “revision,” a word our professors and high school teachers believed necessitated us reducing all of our Black rhetorical abundance into meager-ass absolutes. In my own sloppy work, on and off the page, I was beginning to understand “revision” as a dynamic practice of revisitation, premised on ethically reimagining the ingredients, scope, and primary audience of ones initial vision. Revision required witnessing and testifying. Witnessing and testifying required rigorous attempts at remembering and imagining. If revision was not God, revision was everything every God ever asked of believers.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qsFEQw">
In subsequent months, Gunn and I became boys, coworkers, cousins, forever family. When we werent together, we talked about “we” and “us” far more than we talked about “I.” We wrote En Vogue fan fiction. We memorized every word of <em>Menace 2 Society</em> and every syllable of <em>Ready to Die</em>. We invented words that should already have existed and new definitions for words as old as American exceptionalism.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="g76oWy">
We lived together in a tiny apartment on Capitol Street. We donated plasma for money right off of Fortification. We worked as porters on State Street. We stole white peoples food when there was white peoples food to be stolen. We borrowed massive cereal dispensers filled with Lucky Charms out of our college cafeteria because we were tired of Magic Stars. We jacked light bread off of bread trucks on the Reservoir. We dined, dashed, and left a tip at every Dennys in central Mississippi. We used Gunns food stamps to get scallops and the good ramen to celebrate his little sister moving down to Mississippi.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="URcBWX">
We were poor. We were happy. We were not happy about being poor. But neither of us longed to be rich. We longed for healthy choices, second chances, and good love.
</p>
<div class="c-float-right c-float-hang">
<aside id="pAwaGq">
<q>Gunn asked if I was getting paid for these conversations I was having with white Americans about Black death. </q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TScnS1">
Then, after getting kicked out of our college for the theft of white folks food — sike! I mean white folks library books — I left Mississippi for Ohio, Indiana, and eventually New York.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MJUKo2">
When I returned to Mississippi 20 years later, even though my job was in a much more monied, neo-Confederate part of the state, I looked forward to living an hour from Gunn, who now worked as a teacher in a detention center for kids awaiting sentencing. I couldnt wait to regularly hear the wavy inflections in Gunns voice when he did the opposite of humblebrag about his students and his own childrens grades.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ffDjOm">
I wanted to act as if nothing had changed in our relationship since we first saw each other as young men. I wanted Gunn to forget the summer of 2010 when he asked if he could bring his daughter up to college where I taught in New York. We hadnt seen each other in six years. I agreed to take Gunn and his daughter on a tour of campus and then to the South Bronx, home of Gunns favorite emcee.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mXylW9">
I ended up lying about an emergency when they got to town because I didnt want Gunn to see that Id gained more than 120 pounds since wed last seen each other. I didnt want Gunns daughter, my goddaughter, to look at me with disgust. I didnt want to be reminded of what Id allowed my insides to become, nor the heart meat Id become addicted to eating.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UAzgKD">
So I chose to harm all three of us. I lied, and I ran from my goddaughter and the one person on Earth I literally had no reason to run from.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JBTnGg">
Gunn told me he understood what I was saying because hed lied and run from me, too. “We aint young. We aint even middle-aged,” he said. “We just straight-up old and aint no models of how to be straight-up old and Black and lonely. I lied to you so many times because I was ashamed. We here now.”
</p>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="T56EGH"/>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eQmebJ">
I cant write about Ray Gunn without thinking about fairness and repair. In my laziness, Ive conflated repair and restoration, just as Ive lazily conflated pain with trauma, pleasure with desire, progress with liberation, honesty with truth, and fairness with equity. Restoration and repair are something we are worthy of in life and death, in relationships and solo, but they are not the same word.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Xz7QfK">
Being a Black Mississippian means you will spend a lifetime repairing wounds created by the worst of white Mississippians in hopes of some kind of economic or moral renewal. This is not fair, nor is it fair that we are expected to make Black abundance out of that repair. This, however, is a part of our lineage.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IhE5wN">
The white family in America appears to have a lineage as well. The metastasized, excused unwellness in white families, monied and poor, is responsible for anti-Black terror happening in this nations schools, prisons, hospitals, neighborhoods, and banks. This is the work of folks who despise revision nearly as much as they despise themselves. Abolish police, bullets, missiles, and prisons all we want (and some of us truly want!), and most white American families in the US will do everything possible to make more. And in some ways, thats their business. Cleaning up the messes that seep from these families, weve been taught, is what Black folk in this nation do well.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7uO0Gg">
But I dont want us to clean up the messes of white families. I want them to stop creating and pushing public policy that encourages us to die prematurely. I want them to pay my Grandmama what she is owed for a lifetime of literally, figuratively, and spiritually cleaning up their messes.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1qgUHM">
We have far too many messes of our own. At my worst, I have run away from our lineage of repair and renewal when Ive harmed folks I loved. Every time we run away from an abusive mess, a negligent mess, a lethal mess we helped create, we leave something essential for someone targeted for premature death to clean up. That is humiliation.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IqupJs">
That is not fair.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lvvhdo">
Family can help us repair. Family, chosen and by birth, can also significantly aid in helping those who eat our suffering effectively wipe us off the face of the Earth. Repair what you helped break, my Grandmama taught me. Restore what responsibly loved you, I learned from Gunn. And revise, revise, revise with your family and friends. Collective freedom is impossible without interpersonal repair.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NabwHh">
Id hoped this piece could be an extended exploration of the paradoxical economic dimensions of Black friendship during the pandemic. I wanted this piece to open, fold, and crumple the tired ways we talk about revision in this nation. I wanted to write about Gunns relationship to the state as a Black man who loves Black people, and a Black man who has found work in a detention center for mostly Black and Mexican young people.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="o2BqYV">
But before I could write that, Gunn and I needed to talk with each other about what repair and renewal mean in our middle-age relationships with each other, with the dead, with the Earth. We have to be as concerned with the question of what were owed as we are with the question of what we owe us. I suspect, with rigorous, tender exploration, we will find that the answer to both of those questions is everything.
</p>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="XMKS1h"/>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bHtvxr">
One morning in the spring of 1995, I woke up to this strange, nasally voice coming from the bathroom of the apartment Gunn and I shared. The voice was overenunciating the “or” sound in “elevatOR.” The bathroom door was cracked and Gunn was in the mirror, not simply practicing talking “proper,” but also practicing verbally and vocally becoming a Black man he imagined white folks might fairly compensate.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="50pNgf">
“Nigga,” I remember saying to him through the door. “What are you doing?”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="e2Uhhf">
“Trying to get this money,” he said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YdEbcm">
During our most recent conversation, I asked Gunn if he remembers that day in 1995. After some uncomfortable silence, Gunn answered me. And we talked. And we listened. And we were honest about what we need for repair and what we might be incapable of sharing or accepting in this piece. Before hanging up, Gunn reiterated that Black people, especially poor Black people, need checks for the checks weve been shorted since we were brought here. Until those checks are issued, Gunn says again, he has nothing to say to white folks about the failings of white folks when he himself has failed so many Black folks.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eBSupr">
I get it.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3CKzs1">
Near the end of my conversation with Gunn, he answered the goofy question, “Do you have hope in America?” with the only appropriate answer that should ever be given to that trite-ass question.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DRt9L9">
“I have faith in us.”
</p>
<div class="c-float-right c-float-hang">
<aside id="gbFjnb">
<q>Black people, especially poor Black people, need checks for the checks weve been shorted since we were brought here</q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Sf4T0g">
When my editor asked me if I could write about “fairness” after the George Floyd verdict, I knew there was nothing new I could say to white Americans about their investments in Black suffering. It wasnt only that it had all been said, made, and written; it had all been said, made, and written by the greatest sayers, makers, and writers in history. So I started over, and I scrapped the traditional fetishizing portals of entry into anti-racism.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cIpCBQ">
I decided Id rather write to us and for us about the paradoxes of revision, restoration, and repair in our friendships. Instead of explaining something that has already been explained and making a spectacle of Black death, I decided to write something that makes me feel good about a man from Winona, Mississippi, who has loved me whole and halted my premature death.
</p>
<p class="c-end-para" data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DItiJb">
Today, that is the most loving thing I can do to my insides and Gunns. Today, that feels fair.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ehngmh">
<em>Kiese Laymon is the author of three books, including the novel </em><a href="https://go.redirectingat.com?id=66960X1516588&amp;xs=1&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fbookshop.org%2Fbooks%2Flong-division-9781467670234%2F9781982174828&amp;referrer=vox.com&amp;sref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vox.com%2Fthe-highlight%2F22419450%2Fkiese-laymon-justice-fairness-black-america" rel="sponsored nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><em>Long Division</em></a><em>. </em>
</p>
<div>
<div id="5GW5a6">
<div>
</div>
</div>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Anyone who says they know exactly whats happening in the economy is lying</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ZS6WdBlwGlUsB27enDLU6BPrLRM=/335x388:2613x2097/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69297933/GettyImages_1215016310_copy.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Anyone who says they know exactly whats happening in the economy is lying.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1Zvg0K">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ch1zVz">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="70DUHB">
The pandemic economy has been strange and unpredictable from the get-go.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="X55aWn">
Throughout the past 14 months, the twists and turns have been surprising: <a href="https://www.vox.com/22264268/covid-19-housing-insecurity-housing-prices-mortgage-rates-pandemic-zoning-supply-demand">The housing market boomed</a>, <a href="https://www.vox.com/business-and-finance/22421417/stock-market-pandemic-economy">the stock market soared</a>, <a href="https://www.vox.com/business-and-finance/2020/7/9/21314119/stock-market-day-trading-reddit-dave-portnoy-barstool-robinhood">people got into day trading</a>, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/4/14/21218467/bidets-toilet-paper-shortage-tushy-toto-washlet">everyone hoarded toilet paper</a>, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/22410713/lumber-prices-shortage">lumber became a must-have</a>. Theres been widespread disagreement about how much support from the government was needed, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/5/15/21258535/coronavirus-economic-recession-congress-heroes-act-reopening-stimulus">whether the country was doing too much or not enough</a>, or whether help would come at all. We wont know whether the country overshot or undershot the response for years, and theres still uncertainty about whats happening in the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2021/5/7/22424859/april-jobs-report-economy">labor market</a>, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22346376/inflation-rate-explained-federal-reserve">prices</a>, and other areas. And the prevailing theme has been one that has nothing to do with the economy directly: As long as Covid-19 isnt under control, the economy isnt either.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DS863r">
“Having been a forecaster for 10 years, we were surprised all the time, because nobody has a crystal ball and particularly if you just pull out one data series, one month, theres just no way,” said Claudia Sahm, a former Federal Reserve economist and now a senior fellow at the Jain Family Institute. “Its going to be a wild ride; the data through the end of this year, theyre going to be tough.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FZid8R">
The country and the world are staring into a black box of uncertainty on the economy. Its frustrating, but its also inevitable. Anyone who says they know exactly what is going on in the economy right now is lying. The same goes for anyone who says they know whats going to happen next.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fdL1Zc">
“Because of the unique nature of this crisis, there are going to be some swings,” said Mike Konczal, director of macroeconomic analysis at the Roosevelt Institute. “In a year, theyre going to be trivia questions, but right now were obsessing about them.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lZLpKX">
Few people will probably remember two years from now that <a href="https://slate.com/business/2021/05/used-car-prices-shortage-supply-chain-semiconductors.html">the price of used cars and trucks went up by 10 percent</a> in April.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="haLoqc">
We know that the economy is different now than it was a year ago and that it will be different a year from now. Whats not clear is exactly how. And what we need now — including economists, experts, and policymakers — is the <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/1/4/17989224/intellectual-humility-explained-psychology-replication">intellectual humility</a> to recognize thats the case.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZVmAty">
“At this point, most things should be presumed temporary until proven permanent,” said Jed Kolko, chief economist at the jobs website Indeed.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KlqsMq">
Its unnerving to admit what we dont know, and the pandemic has been a real exercise in that. But after so long of staring into the abyss, maybe its time we embrace it.
</p>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="7yhdCC"/>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="R34QDq">
The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf">reported</a> that the US economy added 266,000 jobs in April, far below the 1 million jobs economists expected, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2021/5/7/22424859/april-jobs-report-economy">leaving many people shocked</a>. The number was so shocking that CNBC reporter Steve Liesman <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzNMrkbq6uo">double-checked</a> it live on air. Nick Bunker, an economist at Indeed, <a href="https://www.hiringlab.org/2021/05/07/april-2021-jobs-report/">wrote that it</a> “might be one of the most disappointing jobs numbers of all time.”
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Much of this is a question of expectations. Many economists have anticipated the labor market to bounce back quickly, and with the country still 8 million jobs from where it was pre-pandemic, a quarter-million-jobs-a-month recovery isnt going to cut it. But one month of data isnt really enough to definitively say whats happening with jobs and workers; April could be a blip, or it could be a sign of an ongoing ominous trend. Many economists and experts are trying to extrapolate from it, but theyre also the same economists and experts who didnt see it coming.
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There are some things we do know: Employers are posting more jobs, and there is a growing demand to hire. We know that more people are getting vaccinated, and as that happens, hopefully, concerns about contracting Covid-19 will fade. We also know that caregiving is still a burden that many working parents face, and with the school year ending, taking care of kids and working is tough to balance. For some families, going back to work right now might not be worth it. The entire labor situation just is out of whack.
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<aside id="Yf16te">
<q>“The economy is reopening and restarting in a way that we really have never seen before”</q>
</aside>
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“The economy is reopening and restarting in a way that we really have never seen before, and we know thats not all going to happen in sync,” Kolko said. “The rate at which employers become more eager to hire wont match exactly the rate at which job seekers are more eager to start working.”
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We also may not yet have a clear sense of what, exactly, just happened. In the April jobs report, the BLS also revised its numbers from previous months and said that the US actually added more jobs in February and fewer jobs in March than it initially reported. The situation is still fluid. Konczal pointed out that <a href="https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cesnaicsrev.htm">monthly revisions to the jobs report</a> — the changes the BLS makes to its estimates of prior months — have been double to triple this year what they have been on average in the past 40 years. “The BLS is trying very hard in very difficult circumstances to get accurate surveys, but it is hard work.”
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Some business groups, economists, and politicians have seized on the jobs numbers to push their own political priorities. The Chamber of Commerce, for example, <a href="https://twitter.com/USChamber/status/1390670704736149507">called for the US to end expanded unemployment insurance benefits</a> after the April jobs report, arguing that the extra $300 in weekly benefits is keeping people out of the workforce. A handful of states, all run by Republicans, have <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/11/politics/unemployment-benefits-gop-states/index.html">already announced their plans</a> to wind down expanded unemployment programs next month.
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Many employers now, and after every economic downturn, complain they cant find workers and that the social safety net is keeping people on the sidelines. Progressives, meanwhile, insist that expanded unemployment isnt keeping anyone out of the workforce at all, and if employers want people to take jobs, they should pay more.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NZUNG5">
Its impossible to parse exactly what is motivating workers at the moment, and what is disincentivizing potential employees and to what extent. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/05/07/jobs-report-labor-shortage-analysis/">Unemployment insurance might allow some workers to rethink their priorities a little</a>, but that doesnt mean that rug should be pulled out from under them.
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“Theres always this uncertainty, and it takes some time to get enough data to form a narrative,” Sahm said. “A complex phenomenon has complex causes.”
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<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/BLTQnUnqOrmsBHUjbgP_wBBsBI4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22514848/GettyImages_1217980687.jpg"/> <cite>Getty Images</cite>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dFZzuS">
Beyond the basic question of whats going on in the economy, how permanent or fleeting is it?
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Take, for example, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22346376/inflation-rate-explained-federal-reserve">inflation</a>, which has been creeping up in some areas. The Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures the average change in prices paid by consumers for things like food, clothes, housing, and transportation, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/inflation-increases-likely-to-prove-transitory-fed-official-says-11620824400">ticked up</a> by 4.2 percent in April compared to a year ago. And in some areas, such as gas and used cars, prices have gone up quite a bit. But the broader question on inflation — and the one the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/inflation-increases-likely-to-prove-transitory-fed-official-says-11620824400">Federal Reserve is focused on</a> as it tries to figure out its next steps on the economy — is whether that inflation is transitory, or to put it more plainly, temporary. Prior to the pandemic, inflation was running confoundingly low in the US economy, and economists were puzzled by why it wasnt going up. Early on in the pandemic, the economy actually <a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteHouseCEA/status/1381579656617472009">saw some deflation</a>, meaning prices went down. Now, many economists say its okay to have some inflation, within reason, and they believe it will be short-lived.
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“An episode of one-time price increases as the economy reopens is not likely to lead to persistent year-over-year inflation into the future,” said Fed Chair Jay Powell <a href="https://apnews.com/article/financial-markets-health-coronavirus-economy-inflation-bbe992c9352a72f189ffd634fe7c9383">at an April news conference</a>.
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Again, it depends on how high inflation is and how long it lasts.
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“The progressive economic agenda of spending through a downturn never promised zero inflation. It said the inflation there would be moderate and manageable,” said Lindsay Owens, interim executive director of the progressive think tank Groundwork Collaborative.
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The persistent doubt of what is temporary and what is permanent in the burgeoning post-Covid-19 economy is hardly contained to inflation. It often plays out in high-level economic debates, but its easy to observe in day-to-day life, too. Plenty of people still dont know when theyre going to go on vacation again, and when they do, where theyll be comfortable going. Return-to-office plans are still being hatched, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22331447/10-ways-office-work-pandemic-future-remote-work">what the future of work looks like is in flux</a>. Whether or not white-collar workers wind up working from home more doesnt just impact their companies, it also affects the businesses and workers that support them.
</p>
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A lot of whats going on in the economy isnt going to show up in the data, and if and when it does, it wont happen for a while. “Its just this different world, and in this world were in, trying to address things at the scale that we are may mean that we dont have the best tools to watch in real-time, or the way we talk about things arent the right way to talk about things,” Konczal said.
</p>
<div class="c-float-right c-float-hang">
<aside id="T3B2Ry">
<q>“The raw ability of the government to stabilize incomes, I think was remarkable given how weak American social infrastructure is.”</q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IIar0b">
Perhaps a prime example of a rather unexpected development — and one of uncertain durability — is the housing frenzy. Early on in the pandemic, some people expected the housing market, like many parts of the economy, would struggle amid mass unemployment and widespread uncertainty. Instead, prices <a href="https://www.vox.com/covid-19-coronavirus-economy-recession-stock-market/2020/5/29/21273520/housing-market-coronavirus-impact-home-prices-mortgages-crash">didnt just hold steady</a>, they <a href="https://www.vox.com/22264268/covid-19-housing-insecurity-housing-prices-mortgage-rates-pandemic-zoning-supply-demand">soared</a>. Preexisting trends, such as low mortgage rates and a cohort of home-ready millennials, combined with a pandemic-induced desire to get more space and out of the city, caused a surge in demand. And the supply just wasnt there. Housing accessibility is not going away as a problem in the US, but the current mania for a single-family home thats pushed prices so high could fade. Or maybe it wont. Some economists <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/23/housing-market-should-cool-off-later-in-year-moodys-economist-zandi-says.html">predicted</a> it would <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/22/realestate/us-home-sales-surge.html">cool off</a> months ago.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RKinIU">
We shouldnt overlook the curious developments in the economy that have been positive and heartening, either. An unprecedented amount of support from the government, from expanded unemployment to stimulus checks, has helped millions of people and kept them from slipping into poverty. <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/consumer-spending-personal-income-march-2021-11619732790">Savings rates increased during the pandemic</a>; <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/credit-card-debt-keeps-falling-banks-are-on-edge-11620725580">credit card debt is falling to the point that its actually making life harder for banks</a>. People have paused their student loan payments and been able to relax, a little, about the prospect of losing their homes. Part of what makes guessing what will happen in the economy next is that the country has never had a response like this before — no one knows what this amount of stimulus will do, or how quickly or how slowly. Or what will happen when some supports go away.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TkDk1A">
“The raw ability of the government to stabilize incomes, I think was remarkable given how weak American social infrastructure is,” Konczal said. “America can actually do things.”
</p>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="VLSeyR"/>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OCi9Mc">
Nothing about the past year and change has been easy or exactly expected. In some ways, things have been better than anticipated — the vaccine arrived earlier than many believed possible, the economic downturn wasnt as long and deep as expected, and the government stepped in multiple times to deliver much-needed support. In other ways, its been worse — hundreds of thousands of people have died, the economy has experienced a number of fits and starts, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/9/29/21494818/k-shaped-economic-recovery-biden-trump-2020-debate">an uneven recovery has taken hold</a>. In other ways, the economy has just been, well, kind of odd (<a href="https://www.vox.com/22421095/chicken-wings-shortage-delivery-bar">who could have expected a shortage of chicken wings</a>, <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22428774/ransomeware-pipeline-colonial-darkside-gas-prices">or a cyberattack on an oil pipeline</a>?).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CXSYFn">
In retrospect, many of the developments in the economy make sense. Of course people bored at home decided to renovate. Of course stimulus checks <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/21611583/pawn-shop-covid-19-economy">would make people resort to short-term lenders a little less</a>. The precariousness of domestic and global supply chains is hardly new, nor is the countrys inadequate child care system.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LnQMyr">
“To the extent were going to see a problem, it likely reflects long-standing problems we knew were problems before Covid,” Konczal said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JGCDRf">
And Covid-19 exacerbated a lot of problems — problems were still reeling from and probably will be for a long time. It felt like the world fell apart in 2020, and its going to take a long time to put it back together.
</p>
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</p></li>
<li><strong>The Fairness Issue</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/UdumDHf_-J7XVZE7RXAltKYS3iI=/53x0:952x674/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69265684/format_16_9_V01.0.gif"/>
<figcaption>
Diana Ejaita for Vox
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</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Together, the pandemic and the death of George Floyd revealed to all Americans the rampant inequities and stratifications many face. But is fairness the goal?
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<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/YYgW4HsU995yniG4Y5QuEoQvF0Y=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21899595/VOX_The_Highlight_Box_Logo_Horizontal.png"/>
</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ji5tH4">
Its never been a secret that life isnt fair; it bears out in countless racial, gendered, economic, and geographical ways throughout a lifetime.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="p5H22g">
But even the most privileged and the most sheltered were made to confront the stratification of American society in the past year, as the coronavirus pandemic laid bare the troubling disparities between those who could weather its financial and logistical disruptions to everyday life and those who could not; and between those who would survive its wrath and those who would not. The murder of George Floyd and subsequent protests and racial reckonings a year ago have only further illuminated these realities.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Zn4Rhp">
What this past year has shown us is that the concept of “fairness” is slippery. On the one hand, its a legible, admirable, seemingly unproblematic goal — enough for everyone, tit for tat, books balanced and parity achieved. Its neat and its simple.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="49i39a">
Fairness, it can also be argued, is the province of children. Its for remote control dominance and ice cream cone distribution; its a way of reducing what ought to be multifaceted into a flat and faceless zero-sum transaction. “Lifes not fair!” is one of the most recognizable phrases kids who have just achieved a grasp of the English language can utter; “lifes not fair,” its natural rejoinder, serves as both an early entry point into the inherent inequities of the world and a catchall statement meant to justify whatever the adult uttering it happens to want in a given moment (generally peace, quiet, and a cupcake sans fingerprints in the frosting). Its infantile and futile to desire fairness; its cruel and hopeless not to.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PVuRPU">
In this months issue of The Highlight, we explore this tension. Each piece wrestles with a different definition of fairness, from a feature by labor writer Sarah Jaffe on the false promise of the gig economy to a comic by Melinda Fakuade and Kazimir Lee examining how couples split bills.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="26kLWa">
At its most insidious, fairness can be trotted out under the guise of equality only to be used as a tool of oppression against the most vulnerable, as Jessica W. Luther writes in her piece about the wave of legislation meant to exclude trans girls and women from participating in sports. At its best, as seen in Carol Kuruvillas interviews with seven religious leaders, it operates in tandem alongside its more powerful cousins — kindness, restoration, and, above all, justice — to make a blueprint for a world worth aspiring to. And sometimes, as Kiese Laymon so beautifully writes in an essay about Blackness in America, fairness is shunting aside whats asked of you, and giving yourself the grace to revisit, revise, and reexamine what you are owed and what you yourself owe your people.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="P6d2hr">
These pieces together raise the notion that fairness in and of itself isnt, and shouldnt be, the goal toward which we strive. Its simply the most obvious result of a far more complex interplay of needs and systems. As Imam Omar Suleiman, president of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, told Kuruvilla, “If justice is the tree, fairness is the fruit.”
</p>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="1Gq9Tv"/>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/L96tIWxeUTrcGiNRO15N5oSyhjU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22509802/GettyImages_1021251776_cropped.jpg"/> <cite>Getty Images</cite>
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<h3 id="noj00Z">
<a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/22423132/anti-transgender-bills-women-sports-fairness">The playing field</a>
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eLAoNY">
Anti-trans bills purport to address “fairness” in sports. But sports have never been fair.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lLrOJz">
By Jessica W. Luther
</p>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="WdFDNN"/>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="An illustration of a ride-share driver behind the wheel of a car." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/naCq7zP8dQYEOyFcv8OLkszsiQs=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22499762/Vox_Final.jpg"/> <cite>Kailey Whitman for Vox</cite>
</figure>
<h3 id="CXkVzX">
The battle for the future of “gig” work<em> (coming Tuesday)</em>
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="V9Sxx2">
Ride-sharing companies are pushing to make a third category of “independent” worker the law of the land. Drivers say the notion of independence is little more than a mirage.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LMJsVY">
By Sarah Jaffe
</p>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="HK4Rg6"/>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="An illustration shows a man looking in the mirror at another version of himself, like a funhouse mirror." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/2HdncD9SiUWJ6o_R3ZzLEKxvD1s=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22503550/Fairness_Family_Final_Revised.jpg"/> <cite>Carlos Basabe for Vox</cite>
</figure>
<h3 id="qVZbig">
What we owe and are owed <em>(coming Wednesday)</em>
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="x0fAKQ">
Kiese Laymon on Black revision, repayment, and renewal.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eUt5TK">
By Kiese Laymon
</p>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="6zZLmX"/>
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<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8xa-3Q8irues_bC8a2t1sTF8Nlw=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22509804/GettyImages_1173357732_cropped.jpg"/> <cite>Getty Images/iStockphoto</cite>
</figure>
<h3 id="F4yBlP">
How can we make it right? What the worlds religions have to say about justice.<em> (coming Thursday) </em>
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Akp18G">
From a Buddhist to a humanist, seven faith leaders weigh in on building a better world.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1n2BPX">
By Carol Kuruvilla
</p>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="oX7vuC"/>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/nW7yj6isud6ODppFPI63POKItUQ=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22502433/header.jpeg"/> <cite>Kazimir Lee</cite>
</figure>
<h3 id="2JXW13">
The last frontier in modern romance is money <em>(coming Friday)</em>
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YTneeg">
As dating and marriage evolve, so is the way couples are splitting finances.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eoekXk">
By Melinda Fakuade and Kazimir Lee
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KWG9rI">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kDLjYw">
</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Jofra Archer ruled out of NZ series after elbow injury flares up</strong> - Archer could play only two of the four away Tests against India and missed the IPL</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Australian IPL cricketers return home after Maldives stop-over</strong> - Most of the 38 members of the Australian contingent, including players, officials and commentators who participated at the non-suspended league, landed at the Sydney airport on Monday morning</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Goalkeeper Alisson saves Liverpools season, with a goal</strong> - It was the first time in Liverpools history that a goalkeeper had scored a competitive goal.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Barcelona beats Chelsea 4-0 to win Womens Champions League final for first time</strong> - Barça is the first team from Spain to win Europes top club competition, which had been dominated recently by seven-time champions Lyon.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Italian Open | Nadal overcomes blip to scythe down Djokovic in Rome final</strong> - After a mid-match wobble, Nadal turned up the heat in the decisive moments of his 57th meeting with top seed Djokovic to secure the victory over the defending champion in two hours and 49 minutes</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Helpline for senior citizens to be fully functional by May end</strong> - Elderline has already started in U.P., M.P., Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, says Social Justice Ministry.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>HC upholds regulation of lotteries of other States</strong> - Sets aside single judges order on sale of lottery tickets of Nagaland</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Coronavirus | Mini-covid care centres in Chandigarh ease patients burden</strong> - Besides doctors and nurses, they are also providing free food, medicines and care.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>SC orders medical examination of MP at Army Hospital</strong> - Apex court posts hearing on bail plea of Raghu Ramakrishna Raju to May 21</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Coronavirus | Few clotting events post-Covishield jab: AEFI panel</strong> - Health Ministry issues advisory of potential thromboembolic incidents</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Covid-19: Thousands head overseas on holiday as rules ease</strong> - Holidaymakers from England, Scotland and Wales are now able to jet off for some early summer sun.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Long working hours killing 745,000 people a year, study finds</strong> - The World Health Organization says the trend may worsen due to the coronavirus pandemic.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>UK plastic waste being dumped and burned in Turkey, says Greenpeace</strong> - Greenpeace says it found plastic waste from UK supermarkets dumped and burned at numerous sites.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Cyber-crime: Irish health system targeted twice by hackers</strong> - Department of Health confirms its IT systems was hit by a ransomware attack last Thursday.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Lockdown rules ease for millions in UK</strong> - Rules on socialising indoors and foreign travel are lifted in England, Wales and most of Scotland.</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Neutrons unlock the secrets of Antonie van Leeuwenhoeks microscopes</strong> - His most powerful microscope holds a lens likely made with Robert Hookes 1678 recipe. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1765022">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Google I/O 2021 preview: Google resurrects Wear OS and Android tablets?</strong> - The Google I/O schedule promises to resurrect some long-dead form factors. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1764606">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>GameStop FOMO inspires a new wave of crypto pump-and-dumps</strong> - Discord groups promise big earnings by manipulating the crypto market. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1765272">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The chip shortage is driving up tech pricesstarting with TVs</strong> - Some high-end televisions already cost 30% more than they did last summer. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1765280">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Colonial Pipeline paid a $5 million ransom—and kept a vicious cycle turning</strong> - Stopping payments would go a long way to stopping ransomware. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1765276">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
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<li><strong>I threw my wife a surprise bukake party</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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Everyone came. You should have seen her face.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/CrytoNice"> /u/CrytoNice </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/ndyyl8/i_threw_my_wife_a_surprise_bukake_party/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/ndyyl8/i_threw_my_wife_a_surprise_bukake_party/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>A baby roach asks his dad what happens if they get sprayed with Raid.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Papa Roach said, “Suffocation, no breathing.”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Arvanti_Golpitan_III"> /u/Arvanti_Golpitan_III </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/ne17la/a_baby_roach_asks_his_dad_what_happens_if_they/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/ne17la/a_baby_roach_asks_his_dad_what_happens_if_they/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>A man in an interrogation room says “Im not saying a word without my lawyer present.”</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Cop: You are the lawyer.
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Lawyer: Exactly, so wheres my present?
</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/PotatoLatte"> /u/PotatoLatte </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/ndovig/a_man_in_an_interrogation_room_says_im_not_saying/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/ndovig/a_man_in_an_interrogation_room_says_im_not_saying/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>A lady finally found her soulmate and calls her dad to tell him about it</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
(Translated from romanian, hopefully you will get it lol)
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The dad is smiling and eager to find out more about this man he asks even more questions about her new lover.
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She tells him that he is smart, beautiful, finished his studies at a highly prestigious university and now he is working as an engineer.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The dad asks “So where did he finish?”
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And the girl replies “On my boobs!”
</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/jukabukaer"> /u/jukabukaer </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/ndrq9k/a_lady_finally_found_her_soulmate_and_calls_her/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/ndrq9k/a_lady_finally_found_her_soulmate_and_calls_her/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>My 4-year-old nephew has been learning Spanish since lockdown.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
He still cant say the word for “please” though, which I think is poor for four
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/tushar-gunner"> /u/tushar-gunner </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/neagrp/my_4yearold_nephew_has_been_learning_spanish/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/neagrp/my_4yearold_nephew_has_been_learning_spanish/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
</ul>
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