Daily-Dose

Contents

• From New Yorker
• From Vox
• From The Hindu: Sports
• From The Hindu: National News
• From BBC: Europe
• From Ars Technica
• From Jokes Subreddit

From New Yorker

• Iran’s Kidnapping Plot Exposes Its Paranoia - A “pernicious” plan to abduct a dissident in Brooklyn is only the latest intelligence scheme to silence dissent and target Americans. - link

• Can the Democrats Create a New Economic Model? - The Biden Administration and its allies on Capitol Hill are rejecting old ideas about trimming government spending and reducing the budget deficit. - link

• Coexisting with the Coronavirus - COVID-19 is likely to become an endemic disease. How will our immune systems resist it? - link

• Suddenly, (Some) Republicans Are All In on the Vaccine - The new G.O.P. politics of the pandemic follow the grim new math of the pandemic for Red America. - link

• Reconsidering the History of the Chinese Communist Party - On the centenary of the C.C.P., a scholar examines the roots of Xi Jinping’s authoritarianism. - link

From Vox

• Prom, after a senior year interrupted -

  

  For prom queen Joviana Duhaney, the night almost felt normal.

  On an evening in early June, Joviana Duhaney was surprised to find herself inside a gorgeous mansion, crowned her high school’s prom queen.

  “People were coming up to me and they were like, ‘Jovi, I voted for you,’ and I’m like, ‘What are you talking about? I’m not running for anything.” She didn’t even know where or how to vote — she was too busy having a good time.

  For the students of Lawrence High School, prom at the Pen Ryn Estate in Pennsylvania was a light at the end of the tunnel. The pandemic had made them antsy to be social again, but the idea of a dance was inconceivable a year before. It felt like a miracle that they could gather again on a dance floor.

  Even those who would typically skip an event like prom were excited to attend, and Joviana was happy to see so many of her classmates there. “I don’t like when people think they’re better than school festivities, like participating in spirit week or things like that,” she said. “I’m just like, ‘You’re so corny.’ For me, that’s more corny than people who participate, because we’re all 18 — it’s fun!” Students at the New Jersey high school missed out on homecoming and the winter dance due to the pandemic. Prom was their last opportunity to celebrate how far they had come in the past year.

  

  

  

  Joviana Duhaney (center) walks with her classmates during their prom in Bensalem, Pennsylvania.

  Of course, Joviana and her friends aren’t the only students who had their school year radically interrupted. Early on in the pandemic, 93 percent of parents reported that their children were engaging in some form of distance learning, while the New York Times reported that 72 percent of high school age students struggled with their mental health this year. Across the country, schools closed, milestone events were canceled, and students found themselves isolated from one another. It was a particularly difficult time to be a high school senior, with college decisions on the horizon and the real world looming, while so many uncertainties lingered in the air.

  Joviana will be leaving Lawrence behind in the fall, heading to Northeastern University. Before shopping for her dorm or even planning her trip to Boston, she did the first thing incoming freshmen need to do in 2021: get vaccinated.

  She is concerned, though, about the unknown: variants, mask mandates lifting, and the general obstacles of being a member of the class of 2025, a group that will attend school in the “aftermath” of the pandemic. “The CDC has done too much switching up,” she said. “It gives me heart palpitations, like what is wrong with y’all? They be weird.”

  “I know people that have died. I have friends that lost their grandparents to it. One of my aunt’s neighbors said, ‘Covid is a hoax, blah, blah, blah.’ His dad died from Covid,” she said. “You could be a conspiracy theorist all you want about what the virus is. But to deny that it’s here? No babes, it’s here. It’s real.”

  

As an essential worker, she’s seen the impact of Covid-19 up close. At the beginning of the pandemic, Joviana worked at CVS. Currently, she works at Target. Customers were often rude, impatient, panicky. Everyone was on edge. “Every time we get a text that a team member has caught it, my heart drops to my stomach,” she said. And while New Jersey was one of the first states to require mask usage indoors, she and her coworkers constantly had to deal with customers who refused to wear them. It was stressful to work through such an unstable moment in time.

What she saw on the job informed her politics — she’s in favor of raising the minimum wage, and at one point suggested that medical workers would do well to unionize, noting that employees were unlikely to receive better pay or protections without a work stoppage. When it comes to the question of if the future English major will become a teacher, she’s unsure yet if it’ll be her path, but is passionate about the necessity of Black teachers. “Why would you turn your nose up at that?” she asks of those who discouraged her from going into education. “People are just weird. Everything is always about money.”

For now, Joviana likes her job, but she’s not sure if she can stomach it much longer. After all, this is her last summer before everything changes — why waste it away directing customers to the cereal aisle when she could spend it with friends?

The social politics of high school are not any less confusing or freighted just because the year has been defined by global catastrophe. Take, for example, the microdrama that ensued between Joviana and her prom date, Warren Aime, a few weeks before the event. Joviana is stubborn and unapologetically self-assured. She had no problem making it clear that she required a promposal.

Longtime friends Warren Aime and Joviana Duhaney pose for photos before their prom.

Over the years, many teachers assumed that Joviana and Warren were dating, but their relationship has always been strictly platonic. When Joviana moved from North Carolina to New Jersey in sixth grade, the pair instantly became best friends and have been ever since. “When we argue, we argue. We’re beefing. One of us has to suck it up and call the other when we’re arguing,” she said. “He gets in his little moods where he thinks that he knows everything. That doesn’t go well for people like me,” she laughed.

“I said that if he didn’t prompose to me, I wasn’t going to prom with him,” she said. While some of her friends felt she was being unreasonable, Joviana was undeterred. “I said, ‘No, you’re going to take me to prom properly.’” When he eventually surprised her with a handmade poster and her favorite snacks, she of course said yes. But Warren had always planned on formally asking her to prom — he just wanted to throw her off the scent.

It was a moment of normalcy in a very not-normal year. At first, the pandemic didn’t seem like a big deal to Joviana. Like everyone else, she doubted that the virus would spread widely, and did not think at all that it would be so deadly. She realized how serious it was in early March in Jamaica, where she and her family had traveled for her grandmother’s funeral. She checked her phone and saw terrifying headlines: the stock market was crashing, cases were rapidly rising, and her school was closing down. Her family realized they had to get home, and fast. Upon her return, she was met with busywork from school, but nothing palpable outside an occasional Zoom call or Google meet-up. All she really had going on was work.

On the afternoon of prom, Joviana got ready at her home. Her mother helped her as she applied stick-on jewels along her forehead and curled her hair. Warren came up to her room for the first time maybe ever — they usually hang out at this house, but this was a special day. “I was so nervous that his suit was not going to match me,” she said. It worked out though — the iridescent rhinestones on her dress complemented the sheen of the paisley design on his jacket beautifully.

In her friend group, she’s the planner of the bunch. Joviana organized pre-prom and post-prom for about 20 of her friends, most of whom attended solo. She and Warren were the only pair to come as dates. They took photos outdoors, embraced their friends, joked, squabbled, and headed off to the big night. The pair made a quick stop at Wendy’s before making their way to the venue. Always thinking one step ahead, Joviana knew the pasta portions at prom would be slim. She was correct.

The music was okay as far as proms go, but one of the most memorable parts of the evening was when the DJ played a song by Warren, who makes music under the name YLN WA. “His music is not bad. Sometimes it can be crazy. I have a video of him jumping and getting the crowd hyped,” she said. Between all the dancing and catching up with friends, Joviana didn’t even realize that she was on prom court.

It’s not that she felt she didn’t have the credentials to be prom queen. As a member of her high school’s Model UN club, the Big Brother Big Sister program, the Black student union, and student leadership, she spent her high school years as a visible participant in the student body.

She’d earned her fair share of goodwill, too — teachers and peers alike found her to be charismatic, kind, and beautiful. Yet, she tends to take praise with a grain of salt. She admits that sometimes, the love she has been embraced with at Lawrence High can feel a little fake. “I don’t feel like that all the time, and I don’t want to complain, but sometimes I feel like people just like me by association, because other people like me,” she explained. That doesn’t faze Joviana too much though. “But everyone was just so happy that I won, and it made me feel so loved and appreciated.”

On the last day of school, Joviana found herself surprised again; this time, to be shedding a few tears. “I was always team ‘I’m not going to cry,’” she admitted.

Jahnek Fuller (center) struts toward her friends Ashley Belgrave (left) and Joviana Duhaney (right) during their prom.

At the start of her freshman year of high school, she felt bored in advance by the fact that she would spend four long years there. Now, she finds that the time flew by. Prom night made her realize how much she’ll miss her old life. But she has to keep moving forward.

“It’s so interesting the way the cookie crumbles. Everybody I know that was so intent on going far and getting out? They all stayed here,” she said. “I didn’t have that mentality. I knew I’d end up where I was supposed to be.” Joviana wasn’t set on going to school out of state, but Northeastern felt like a fit after just one visit. She tried to avoid putting any schools on a pedestal, a habit that often burns would-be freshmen. “I was more thinking, ‘Where am I going to go that’s going to match my energy?’”

The way Joviana made her college decision was a bit unlike the processes of her peers. For one thing, she didn’t care for advice from people who said she should attend certain schools just because they were harder to get into. She also wasn’t interested in going to school down South — she likes her life to be faster-paced. She’s heard of students who purposely didn’t apply to northern schools at all, the thinking being that they could possibly be shut down during the fall of 2021. Nobody wanted to lose another school year. According to a national survey of 2,400 students, 80 percent of high school juniors and seniors say the pandemic affected their after-graduation plans.

She imagines that her life in Boston will hold her closer than her suburban life did. “Everyone’s like, ‘You’re going to see your friends in the summertime,’ and I’m not. I’m not coming home,” she told me. It’s not that she doesn’t love home or that she won’t miss her family — she just has one of those hunches again. “I’m going to find an internship. I’m going to study abroad. There’s nothing tying me here. I don’t have a relationship with anybody. I’m going to spend these next four years, and I’m going to live my life while I don’t have any responsibilities for real. You won’t catch me in Lawrence.”

Of course, anything can happen. Change is constant, and she intends to lean into it. After all, she and her peers are familiar with thinking things will go one way and then being left dumbfounded, a little heartbroken, but most of all, hopeful. The pandemic left a generation of students with a deluge of things to worry about, but maybe soon, they can heal from the isolation and the confusion of the pandemic. The fall will hold a new start — masks will come off, vaccinations will have gone into arms, and students will be able to explore their academic and social lives again, even if everything is different now. With brave faces, this class of students will take on a changed world.

Joviana does have her concerns, though: Where will she get her hair braided in Boston? She’s only visited her new city once before; was it a mistake to be so sure of herself? Will she be able to bear the cold winters? Not to mention the expenses that will come with her new life. After all, cities, and subsequently their institutions, are not cheap to experience. She’s heard that the Black community in Boston is a strong and vocal one, and she’s hoping that’s true. She admits she is actually a little nervous about college, in the way that all kids are the summer before it happens. Plus, the pandemic has amplified some of those worries. “It might sound corny, but the idea that things really actually might go back to normal is not as comforting as I thought it would be a year ago. It’s like, pump the brakes, whoa. We’re going to be in a dorm, on top of each other, all the time,” she said. It will be an adjustment for sure.

“I’ve been nostalgic, but not that nostalgic. It’s high school,” she said, shrugging. “I wouldn’t change anything. Covid sucked, but for me, at least, I feel like without that, maybe I would have been in a different spot. I’m glad it’s over, I’m sad it’s over, but it was time for a change. I’m excited for the next chapter in my life. I’m excited for everyone else around me to do what they’ve been wanting to do.”

Hannah Yoon is an independent Korean-Canadian photographer based in Philadelphia.

• How Kevin McCarthy tried to sabotage the House January 6 investigation -

  

  Of course McCarthy never wanted a real investigation into the insurrection he encouraged.

  House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s months-long campaign to undermine the committee House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) set up to investigate the January 6 insurrection finally came to a culmination on Wednesday, when he announced he won’t be nominating any Republicans to serve on it after all.

  Instead, he said at a news conference that House Republicans will conduct their own investigation of an attempt to reject last November’s election results that most of them supported and that was instigated by the leader of their party.

  “We will run our own investigation,” McCarthy said, adding later that “no committee in Congress will work if one person is picking all who can serve.”

  Kevin McCarthy says that Republicans will run their own investigation into the insurrection instigated by the leader of their party pic.twitter.com/SkclfTS3hg

  — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 21, 2021

McCarthy’s news conference came hours after Pelosi rejected the nomination to the committee of two of McCarthy’s five proposed Republicans: Reps. Jim Jordan and Jim Banks, who both voted in January against certifying two states’ results which contributed to President Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump. Instead of nominating more suitable Republicans to the committee, McCarthy opted to try to blow the whole thing up.

And while McCarthy accused Pelosi of “playing politics” by rejecting Jordan and Banks, the irony is it’s his party that has an electoral interest in maintaining a fog of confusion around an insurrection that will be a major issue heading into next year’s midterms and the 2024 presidential election.

McCarthy rejected a bipartisan committee, now claims he wants a bipartisan committee

In May, the top Democrat and Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee — Reps. Bernie Thompson (MS) and John Katko (NY), respectively — hammered out a deal for a January 6 committee that had the features McCarthy now says he wants: equal representation of Democrats and Republicans, and Republican veto power over subpoenas.

But McCarthy torpedoed that deal because the scope of the committee’s work wouldn’t include an investigation into “interrelated political violence” purportedly perpetrated by leftist groups like Black Lives Matter and antifa.

“Given the Speaker’s shortsighted scope that does not examine interrelated forms of political violence in America, I cannot support this legislation,” a statement from his office concluded, in a talking point that McCarthy also raised on Wednesday.

Despite McCarthy’s opposition to the Thompson-Katko deal, legislation to set up an independent commission passed the House with 35 Republicans voting in favor, but was blocked by Senate Republicans in their first filibuster of the Biden era. Pelosi responded by creating a commission with eight Democratic appointees and five Republican ones, with Pelosi having veto power over the members McCarthy appointed. One of the Pelosi appointees is Republican Rep. Liz Cheney (WY).

McCarthy’s move to appoint Jordan and Banks to the commission, meanwhile, signaled how disinterested he is in an independent January 6 investigation. Not only did Jordan and Banks vote against certifying parts of Trump’s loss, but as recently as two months ago, Banks was still unable to say Biden’s win was “legitimate” (despite Trump’s own officials repeatedly stating there is no evidence of widespread fraud) and was defending his vote against accepting the election results.

Jordan, meanwhile, is actually a witness of the events leading up to January 6. He was part of a group of House Republicans who publicly worked with the Trump White House last December to scheme about ways to overturn the election results on January 6.

McCarthy is just as guilty as anyone of sowing doubt about the election

Beyond trying to protect Trump and his party from an investigation that is likely to result in a damaging report issued just before next year’s midterm elections, McCarthy has self-interested reasons to try to kneecap a January 6 committee. He’s just as guilty as anyone for pushing lies about the 2020 election that persuaded Trump supporters the presidency was stolen and motivated them to storm the Capitol.

Just days after the election, for instance, McCarthy went on Fox News and proclaimed, “President Trump won this election, so everyone who’s listening, do not be quiet. We cannot allow this to happen before our very eyes … join together and let’s stop this.”

Two months later, McCarthy joined Banks and Jordan in voting against accepting the election results from Arizona and Pennsylvania (he’s since tried to claim he never supported efforts to overturn the election results wholesale).

McCarthy might not have been in favor of the storming of the Capitol itself — as Trump supporters rioted inside the Capitol on January 6, McCarthy had a phone call with Trump that remains shrouded in mystery, but during which McCarthy reportedly confronted Trump about why he wasn’t doing more to quell the unrest. But he also doesn’t seem in favor of interrogating why that unrest happened or what role his party and the former president could have played in prompting it: Asked about that call during Wednesday’s news conference, McCarthy quickly pivoted to law enforcement failures on January 6 — a topic he made clear will be a focus of the Republican investigation.

In the immediate aftermath of the insurrection, McCarthy gave a speech on the House floor in which he acknowledged that Trump “bears responsibility” for the events of January 6 — but in a remarkable turnaround, during a July 1 news conference he refused to acknowledge Trump bears responsibility for January 6.

Republicans didn’t really try to hide the fact they wanted to turn the January 6 investigation into a circus

Shortly before Pelosi announced she wouldn’t accept Banks and Jordan on the January 6 commission, Banks released a statement in which he indicated he intended to turn the committee into a circus.

“Make no mistake, Nancy Pelosi created this committee solely to malign conservatives and to justify the Left’s authoritarian agenda,” Banks said.

Pelosi on Thursday cited statements of that sort as a reason she rejected Banks and Jordan.

“They had made statements and taken actions that I think would impact the integrity of the committee,” Pelosi said during a news conference. “It’s my responsibility as Speaker of the House to make sure we get to the truth on this. We will not let their antics stand in the way of that.”

While McCarthy may not be appointing Republicans to serve on Pelosi’s committee, it remains the case that the House investigation will be bipartisan. Republican Rep. Cheney already agreed to serve on it, and on Wednesday she criticized McCarthy for “at every opportunity attempt[ing] to prevent the American people from understanding what happened.”

“We must have this select committee investigation,” Cheney told reporters. “We cannot allow those voices who are attempting to prevent the American people from getting the truth to prevail.”

Republicans, predictably, have responded by suggesting Cheney isn’t really a Republican.

• Lessons from Indigenous firefighters on the front lines of Western wildfires -

  

  First Nations bring generations of knowledge to the fight against climate-fueled blazes.

  This story is part of Down to Earth, a Vox reporting initiative on the science, politics, and economics of the biodiversity crisis.

  It’s not yet August and wildfires are already tearing through North America. In Oregon, the Bootleg Fire has scorched almost 400,000 hectares — big enough that it created its own weather system. In British Columbia, meanwhile, officials declared a state of emergency in July as nearly 300 wildfires prompted evacuations across the province. Wildfires in BC have burned more than three times the area that has usually burned by this time of year, based on a decade of data.

  In his 25-year career as a firefighter in Canada, Brady Highway has never seen anything like this summer. The fire season starts earlier now and is more severe, he said, thanks to climate change and decades of fire suppression. “Polar bears used to be considered the indicator of climate change. Now, the real obvious one to me is forest fires,” he told Vox.

  A member of the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation in Saskatchewan, Highway is part of a large force of First Nations firefighters across the country. Many Indigenous lands contain forests and are on the front lines of wildfires, he said, and members feel a sense of responsibility for the land.

  “Most of the folks that work for me who are First Nation don’t really look at this as a job,” said Chad Thomas, the CEO of Yukon First Nations Wildfire, the largest firefighting contractor in Yukon, which employs dozens of First Nations firefighters. “They look at this as a calling.”

  Indigenous people in North America are especially adept at managing wildfires, both through prescribed burning and fighting the fires themselves, given their knowledge of the land and generations of experience. Yet their contributions are sometimes overlooked. “First Nations crews do not get the credit they deserve in fire management in Canada,” Amy Christianson, a scientist with Canada’s forest service, recently wrote on Twitter.

First Nations crews do not get the credit they deserve in fire management in Canada. Look at this hotspot map. They’ve literally stopped the fire at the #Skeetchestn reserve boundary. pic.twitter.com/qUHZW1zDWt

— Amy Christianson (@ChristiansonAmy) July 5, 2021

Thomas and Highway told Vox that experienced Indigenous firefighters can have trouble rising through the ranks or earning respect from their non-Indigenous peers. That frustration is shared by some US Indigenous firefighters as well: John Tayaba, director of the fire department for the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians in Northern California, said his crew of 24 sometimes feels relegated to “the back of the bus,” behind government agencies, when it comes to fighting fires in the state. Even if he and his crew are closest to a wildfire, for example, they’ll often have to wait for the state resources to arrive first, he said.

Highway, a project manager at the Indigenous Leadership Initiative, spoke with Vox about elevating Indigenous firefighting and building the next generation of First Nations firefighters. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Wildfires this year are already “off the charts”

Benji Jones

How long have you been a firefighter?

Brady Highway

I started when I was 15 years old, in 1994. I’ve been doing fire management in some capacity ever since. I’ve been involved in fighting around 250 wildland fires.

Benji Jones

How did you get into it?

Brady Highway

When I was a kid, we were up on our traditional land, and there was a fire that started by the lake that threatened our camp. We were told to evacuate, but my dad and I decided to stick around and do whatever we could. In those days, you learned the trade by actually doing the work. We spent most of the summer on that fire, and we were able to save our camp.

What ultimately got me into the industry was a sense of responsibility for the land. It’s a core value to our people to look after past and future generations.

Benji Jones

How bad are the fires this year?

Brady Highway

They’re off the charts. We’ve already surpassed the number of fires we’ve experienced in previous years in Canada. British Columbia just initiated a state of emergency, and I suspect Saskatchewan and Ontario will do the same in a couple of weeks. This is certainly unprecedented in my career in firefighting.

When I first started fighting fires there was a very defined fire season — mostly July and August. Now, these events are happening in early spring, which catches a lot of agencies by surprise. It’s tied to human-induced climate change. There’s also been fire suppression and an over-accumulation of fuels across the landscape.

Indigenous communities are really on the front lines of this. Our communities are remote and isolated. These are areas that have been passed down from generation to generation, and there’s a strong cultural tie — and an individual tie — to those lands. We feel a sense of responsibility to care for them into the future.

James MacDonald/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The role of Indigenous firefighters

Benji Jones

Before European settlers arrived, Indigenous people had been doing prescribed burns for thousands of years, which helps to limit intense wildfires, as my colleague Umair Irfan has written. What role do First Nations people play in firefighting today?

Brady Highway

The vast majority of initial wildfire attack crews in Saskatchewan are Indigenous. These people are highly respected in their communities and role models for children.

It’s also an accessible job. You can get hired into an entry-level position quickly based on skills that you develop on the land.

Benji Jones

Fire is obviously an important part of Indigenous culture. Is there traditional knowledge in firefighting itself?

Brady Highway

For one, there’s the idea of accountability for generations to come. There are also more pragmatic benefits of having Indigenous knowledge on a crew. First Nations people know how to get around on their land — they don’t need a map, they don’t need a compass. They know exactly where traditional cultural sites are, the ones that are important to save. They can get there at night, so they can get there through the smoke. When helicopters can’t fly, they can still drive boats. There’s still a lot of things that Indigenous people can do that will require an awful lot of training for non-Indigenous people.

“Passed over for promotion”

Benji Jones

You’ve said before that Indigenous firefighters are overlooked. What do you mean by that?

Brady Highway

We’ve been trying to get First Nations more involved in fighting wildfires for a number of years.

Often when First Nations crews get involved they’re just contract crews — considered nothing more than your boots-on-the-ground, put-water-on-fire resource. That doesn’t allow for First Nations to become involved in the decision-making process. It’s not that First Nations are trying to take over wildfire management, but we should be collaborating when the stakes are so high. There’s an emergency, we should all be contributing.

James MacDonald/Bloomberg via Getty Images

First Nations firefighters also tend to get stuck at entry-level positions. Even with 25 years of experience, I wasn’t able to enter management. I know a lot of other fire crew leaders that have been passed over for promotion. I’m not sure if it’s favoritism or racism.

It’s now much harder to become a firefighter, and it requires more resources. Decades of experience are being overlooked for people who might have some book education or sat in on a one- or two-week training course, and now they are the certified resources that the provinces really depend on.

Building the next generation of First Nations firefighters

Benji Jones

Are you hoping to build out the arsenal of Indigenous firefighters? What does that look like?

Brady Highway

I work for the Indigenous Leadership Initiative. We’re an advocate for Indigenous-led conservation, which includes supporting a network of Indigenous guardians — individuals across Canada who do community-based environmental monitoring [among other things].

Our goal is to give some of these guardians the tools to fight fires. We see this as a very significant way that the guardians can make an impact on climate change and the things that are threatening Indigenous communities.

Supporting our youth and elders as we try to improve our lives and protect our livelihoods is the most important thing for me. This work is going to continue. This is not going to be the last fire season that will challenge us.

From The Hindu: Sports

• Russians suspected of doping stopped from going to Olympics - The World Anti-Doping Agency said it intervened to stop several Russians from competing based on evidence from the Moscow testing laboratory that was shut down in 2015.

• Fireworks get Tokyo’s no-frills opening ceremony underway - The International Olympic Committee (IOC) had released the order of the parade of nations for the opening ceremony

• Tokyo Olympics | Deepika Kumari to partner Pravin Jadhav in mixed pair competition - The mixed pair competition, which will make its Games debut here on Saturday, is seen as India’s best medal hope in archery.

• 3rd ODI: India to bat first against SL, includes five debutants with six changes in playing XI - India have already sealed the three-game series 2-0.

• Tokyo Olympics linked COVID count goes past 100 on day of opening ceremony - The total number of cases directly linked to the Games stood at 106 on Friday with 11 of them athletes.,

From The Hindu: National News

• Will speed up Ram temple, BSP promises Brahmins - Bahujan party kick starts series of public meetings to woo dominant caste

• Parliament failed to function for fourth day in a row - Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah berated the house for disruptions in past three days.

• How techies in Kerala are venting their Work-From-Home blues through hilarious memes - A meme contest for IT employees has attracted several entries that capture numerous laugh-out-loud and thought-provoking moments occuring when the professional world gets mixed up with the personal

• Raj Kundra moves Bombay HC seeking immediate release - Businessman and husband of actor Shilpa Shetty is in police custody in connection with busted pornography racket

• No fixed timeline to complete vaccination, says government - All above 18 likely to get jab by Dec. 2021, says Minister

From BBC: Europe

• EU chief rejects UK bid to renegotiate Brexit deal - Boris Johnson speaks to EU chief Ursula von der Leyen about the UK’s demand to rework the Brexit deal.

• Coronavirus: Italy brings in Covid certificate amid spike in infections - All those aged 12 and over with at least one jab will be able to access bars, cinemas and gyms.

• Tokyo Olympics: Russian archer faints in heat & rowing schedule changed due to weather - A Russian archer faints in intense heat during Olympic qualifying and the rowing schedule is changed with the Tokyo weather in the spotlight as the Games officially open.

• Pegasus spyware: French President Macron changes phone after hack reports - Mr Macron was one of several world leaders reportedly targeted by NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware.

• Channel crossings: Hundreds more migrants cross to UK - The government said a surge in illegal migration across Europe had seen a rise in crossings.

From Ars Technica

• Rocket Report: Super Heavy lights up, China tries to recover a fairing - “My expectations were high, and they were dramatically exceeded.” - link

• Snake Eyes film review: More like “G.I. No” - A fan edit could get this into “so bad it’s good” territory. Until then, watch out. - link

• “Get vaccinated! Take delta seriously!” US experts plead as cases skyrocket - CDC head: The vaccines “are some of the most effective that we have in modern medicine.” - link

• Judges reject Viasat’s plea to stop SpaceX Starlink satellite launches - Viasat fears SpaceX competition, sought freeze on launches and environmental review. - link

• Kaseya gets master decryptor to help customers still suffering from REvil attack - REvil ransomware struck as many as 1,500 networks, but a master key is now available. - link

From Jokes Subreddit

• Jane had developed a certain attraction to Tarzan. So during her questions about his life, she asked him how he had sex. “Tarzan not know what is sex” he replied. Jane then explained to him what sex was. -

  Tarzan said ….“Tarzan use knot hole in trunk of tree.”

  Stunned by his response, Jane said: “Tarzan you have it all wrong, you don’t shag a tree to get yourself off. Tell you what, I will show you how to do it properly.”

  She took off her clothing, got completely naked and laid down on the ground.

  “Here” she said, pointing to her privates, “you must put it in here.”

  Tarzan removed his loin cloth, showing Jane his considerable manhood, stepped closer to her and kicked her as hard as he could in the crotch.

  Jane rolled around in agony for what seemed like an eternity.

  Eventually she managed to grasp for air and screamed: "What the bloody hell did you do that for?

  “Check for squirrel.” Tarzan responds

  submitted by /u/littleboy_xxxx
  [link] [comments]

• A sperm cell contains about 37.5 MB of information. There are about 100 million sperm cells per ml; the average ejaculation is about 2.25ml, and takes about 5 seconds. This makes the average bandwidth of the human penis 1687 TB/sec -

  I know, that’s a lot of information to swallow.

  submitted by /u/Genius_Mate
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• A man walks into an old pub in Dublin, takes a seat at the bar and orders 3 pints. -

  After he is served he takes sips from them in turn and when all 3 glasses are finally empty he orders 3 more. The barkeeper, who has been watching him, has never seen such a weird style of drinking and says to the man: “You know when you leave a beer for too long it goes flat, so they would taste better if you order just one at a time.”
  “Well”, says the man at the bar. “You see I have 2 brothers who I used to drink with, but unfortunately one moved to America and the other one moved to Australia. Now we are on 3 different continents and we hardly ever see each other. So I drink a pint for me and 2 for my brothers. This way we at least try to keep this tradition alive and it feels like we’re still together.”
  The bartender agrees that this is a beautiful explanation for his weird behaviour and the man becomes a regular at his bar. The other customers also get used to his ritual of ordering 3 pints and drinking them in turn.
  But then one day “Mister 3 Pints” comes in and orders only 2 glasses. The whole pub gets silent and the by the time the man orders a second round of only 2 pints the barkeeper says: “I’m terribly sorry as I don’t want to intrude on your grief, but I just wanted to offer my condolances on your loss.”
  The man looks puzzled, but then a smile breaks through and he says. “Thanks a lot, but everyone is fine really. It’s just that my wife had us join the Baptist church and I had to give up drinking. But my brothers are still Catholics, so it didn’t affect them.”

  submitted by /u/RubberBand_Ball
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• I used to make jokes at work during meetings, and I could really get people laughing. Then COVID hit, and all our meetings were online. I’d still make jokes, but no one would laugh… -

  Not one. At first, I thought it was just because everyone was muted. It turns out, they didn’t find me remotely funny.

  submitted by /u/Microbialchump
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• Why does Dr. Pepper come in a bottle? -

  His wife died.

  submitted by /u/Fear-It-Run-From-It
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