July Fourth

What You Need To Know

Jul 04, 2021

Welcome to our weekend edition, a combination of the world, profiles, and good reads that you might not see during the week. Happy Fourth!

The World

July Fourth could be a record-breaking weekend for TSA. The U.S. hit a new milestone for airport passenger screening this week, with the TSA reporting that it screened more people Thursday than it did on the same date in 2019.

Lisa Farbstein, TSA Spokesperson @TSA_Northeast

BREAKING NEWS: @TSA screened 2,147,090 people at airport security checkpoints nationwide yesterday, Thursday, July 1. Ready for this? It surpassed the 2019 checkpoint volume for the same day, which was 2,088,760. So get to the airport early if you're flying and #MaskUp.

Kim Jong Un’s weight loss befuddles North Korea watchers: Kim’s health is “the biggest wild card” in assessing stability in North Korea, said Sue Mi Terry, a former CIA analyst who briefed former US presidents George W Bush and Barack Obama on North Korea and is now a senior fellow at the think-tank Center for Strategic and International Studies. “And with him not having any kind of succession plan, it is a high impact scenario . . . the interest is extremely high.” (Financial Times)

The ransomware group that collected an $11 million payment from meat producer JBS SA about a month ago has begun a widespread attack that has likely infected hundreds of organizations world-wide and tens of thousands of computers. The group, known as REvil, has focused its attack on Kaseya VSA, software used by large companies and technology-service providers to manage and distribute software updates to systems on computer networks, according to security researchers and VSA’s maker, Kaseya Ltd. (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street wants bankers back in the office — especially Gen Zers. Top firms like Goldman and JPMorgan hope that in-person interaction—and more money—will cure the malaise that many newbies are feeling. (Wall Street Journal)

50 years after his death, fans honor Jim Morrison in Paris. (Associated Press)

The Associated Press @AP

Fans have converged on Paris to pay tribute to mythic rock figure Jim Morrison 50 years after his death. Rock music lovers from across the world came to the Pere-Lachaise cemetery in eastern Paris where The Doors frontman is buried.

apne.ws50 years after his death, fans honor Jim Morrison in ParisPARIS (AP) — Paris on Saturday was the only place to be for die-hard Jim Morrison fans. Fifty years after his death at age 27, rock music lovers from France and across the world came to the Pere-Lachaise cemetery in eastern Paris where The Doors’ frontman is buried.

Profiles & Reads

Nowhere Is Ready for This Heat:The Pacific Northwest is melting now, but all across America the infrastructure we have was built for the wrong century. The Portland Streetcar is 20 years old, making it relatively sprightly for infrastructure in the United States. Yet it was built for a different geological epoch. On Sunday, while Portland suffered through what was then its hottest day ever, the system started to melt. As the temperature reached 112 degrees Fahrenheit, a power cable on a major bridge warped, twisted around some metal hardware, and scorched. Elsewhere, the wires that run above the track expanded and sagged so much that they risked touching the train cars. By mid-afternoon, the streetcar system had shut down. The trams, which run on 100 percent renewable energy, seem to offer exactly the sort of urban fast transit that the country needs to reduce carbon pollution. But they were not prepared for—they could not withstand—one of the region’s first wrenching encounters with the remade atmosphere. (The Atlantic)

The Atlantic @TheAtlantic

It's very, very hot in parts of the U.S. Even as the climate has diverged from the norms of the past, the construction of the infrastructure needed to handle it has not, writes @yayitsrob:

on.theatln.tcNowhere Is Ready for This HeatThe Pacific Northwest is melting now, but all across America the infrastructure we have was built for the wrong century.

A fan called Nationals Park to find out about a rain delay. She was surprised by who answered. Like many in Washington that late-May night, Michele Crowl just wanted good information: It was past 11 p.m., and the Nationals and Cincinnati Reds were in the third hour of a rain delay. Should her family stay or leave? So Crowl decided to call Nationals Park for an update. “Hello?” the person said, as if it were a question. “Can I speak to a representative of the Washington Nationals?” Crowl responded. “You are speaking to a representative of the Washington Nationals,” the man recalled saying, confusing those in his crowded office. When Crowl asked for clarity on the game’s status, he told her it would almost certainly be suspended. When she asked what would happen to her family’s tickets, he had no idea. When he asked for her name, she provided it, hoping that would get her closer to what she called for in the first place. “Ms. Crowl, this is Dave Martinez,” said the Nationals’ manager. He covered the receiver with his hand, looked at General Manager Mike Rizzo, bench coach Tim Bogar and Jen Giglio, the team’s head of communications, and mouthed: “It’s a fan.” They all laughed, their eyes wide with tired shock. (Washington Post)

Jesse Dougherty @dougherty_jesse

Here's a rain delay story about human connection and picking up the phone:

wapo.stA fan called Nationals Park to find out about a rain delay. She was surprised by who answered.Michele Crowl just wanted some information about the status of a rain delay. She ended up talking to Dave Martinez for 20 minutes.

After Jeff Bezos: the changing of the guard at Amazon. Andy Jassy takes over as the $1.7tn company comes under intense political and regulatory scrutiny. “I would not say he’s Bezos’s alter-ego as a visionary, that’s not who he is,” says Michael Skok, a venture capitalist and close associate of Jassy for several years. “[But] he really encourages the creatives to get creative, to get out of their comfort zone, and to go do something challenging — to break the rules, to find a way to do something new.” (Financial Times)

Financial Times @FinancialTimes

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is stepping away after 18 years as the chief executive. But can the company survive without him? And who is Andy Jassy, the man replacing him?

on.ft.comSubscribe to read | Financial TimesNews, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication

The Senator Who Decided to Tell the Truth: A Michigan Republican spent eight months searching for evidence of election fraud, but all he found was lies. Right around the time Donald Trump was flexing his conspiratorial muscles on Saturday night, recycling old ruses and inventing new boogeymen in his first public speech since inciting a siege of the U.S. Capitol in January, a dairy farmer in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula sat down to supper. It had been a trying day. The farmer, Ed McBroom, battled sidewinding rain while working his 320 acres, loading feed and breeding livestock and at one point delivering a distressed calf backwards from its mother’s womb, before hanging the newborn animal by its hind legs for respiratory drainage. Now, having slipped off his manure-caked rubber boots, McBroom groaned as he leaned into his home-grown meal of unpasteurized milk and spaghetti with hamburger sauce. He would dine peacefully at his banquet-length antique table, surrounded by his family of 15, unaware that in nearby Ohio, the former president was accusing him—thankfully, this time not by name—of covering up the greatest crime in American history.

Peter Baker @peterbakernyt

"These are good people, and they’re being lied to, and they’re believing the lies. And it’s really dangerous.” @TimAlberta talks with the Michigan Republican senator who debunked Trump’s false election claims.

theatlantic.comThe Senator Who Decided to Tell the TruthA Michigan Republican spent eight months searching for evidence of election fraud, but all he found was lies.

‘Defund the police’: What it means and what the research says on whether more police presence reduces crime. We explore what “defund the police” means to criminologists, activists and legal scholars, recent research and what the future of policing in America might look like. “Defund the police” is something of a Rorschach inkblot test — people bring their own interpretations to the phrase. (Journalist’s Resource)

The Journalist's Resource @JournoResource

‘Defund the police’: What it means and what the research says on whether more police presence reduces crime

journalistsresource.org‘Defund the police’: What it means and what the research saysWe explore what “defund the police” means, recent academic scholarship and what the future of policing in America might look like.

Would you jump in to stop an assault? Recent videos — especially the horrendous video of an assailant on a busy Midtown street in Manhattan knocking a Filipino immigrant to the ground and then repeatedly kicking her head while no one helped — again raised questions of the “bystander effect” and an entire branch of psychology dedicated to understanding the behavioral dynamics of people confronted by public violence. In a 2019 study published in the journal American Psychologist, researchers in Britain and the Netherlands reviewed surveillance footage of 200 violent altercations in three countries and found that bystanders had intervened nine out of 10 times. In many of the instances, several strangers worked together to calm a fight. The authors of the study found little variation in the rates of intervention in the three cities — Amsterdam; Cape Town; and Lancaster, England — suggesting that the human impulse to help strangers despite risks to one’s own personal safety is universal. (New York Times)

The Boston Globe @BostonGlobe

Would you jump in to stop an assault? Following two recent attacks in New York City, the responsibility of bystanders has come into question.

bos.glWould you jump in to stop an assault? - The Boston GlobeThose who study what’s known as the bystander effect say the narrative of callous apathy is an outdated trope.

Listen, Watch, Read

I’m introducing this new periodic feature to the Weekender — a recommended podcast, video & book. Let me know what you think (and send me your own suggestions) by replying to this email.

Listen: Staying power: Tony Saich on 100 years of the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese Communist Party rules a country that is already an economic superpower and is poised to become a military and geopolitical one as the 21st Century unfolds. But Harvard Kennedy School Professor Tony Saich says the party’s 100th birthday next month is also a time to remember the party’s struggles and humble beginnings. From its early days as Soviet-supported client and its existential struggles with the Chinese Nationalists, to the excesses of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, to its transformation of the country into a global economic superpower with a growing middle class, the party has made both disastrous errors and remarkable achievements. But through it all, Saich says, the party has shown a remarkable ability to survive, adapt, and maintain control of a country of more than a billion people. That’s why understanding China’s politics is crucial for the future of everything from the world economy to the climate crisis to international human rights. Saich, the director of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, has written a new book due out next month called From Rebel to Ruler: One Hundred Years of the Chinese Communist Party. (Harvard Kennedy School PolicyCast)

Watch: The 21 Best Comedies of the 21st Century (So Far) In today’s bumper crop of TV comedy, what funny is not is simple or monolithic. So picking our 21 favorite American comedies of the 21st century — the tango partner to our list of the 20 best American dramas since “The Sopranos” — involved hard choices and tricky questions. What even counts as a comedy, in an age of dramedy and comic drama and depressed cartoon horses? How do you account for changing times and mores, jokes that aged badly, stars’ less-than-amusing offscreen offenses? Is there more to a great comedy than how many times it makes you laugh? (New York Times)

Read: FT’s Summer books 2021: From politics, economics and history to art, food and, of course, fiction — FT writers and critics choose their favorite reads of the year so far. (Financial Times)

28 Great Reads for Your Every Summer Mood: Whether you’re in the mood to burst out the door or curl up on a couch this summer, The Atlantic’s writers and editors have reading recommendations to match. Do you want to feel wonder about the universe, or be transported to another place? Maybe you’re craving smart observations about life, a deep dive, or just a bit of human connection. If you’re looking to embrace high drama or rediscover an old gem, we have you covered too. Here, 28 books to keep you company, wherever you’ll be. (The Atlantic)