Gun Violence Spikes in NYC, Intensifying Debate Over Policing
One-Fifth of Earth’s Ocean Floor Is Now Mapped ; Seattle Art Museum Isn’t Dissolving ; and More Picks
My Family Saw a Police Car Hit a Kid. Then I Learned How NYPD Immunity Works. (Reader Steve)
The author writes, “Last Halloween, my wife and then-6-year-old daughter were making their way home after trick-or-treating in Brooklyn. Suddenly, an unmarked NYPD car with sirens wailing began speeding against traffic up a one-way street, our neighborhood’s main thoroughfare. … Then, in an instant, the car hit one of the kids. Afterward, I tried to find out more about what exactly had happened and whether officers would be disciplined. There was footage and plenty of witnesses, and I happen to be an investigative journalist. I thought there was at least a chance I could get answers. Instead, the episode crystallized all of the ways in which the NYPD is shielded from accountability.”
Even If Congress Bans Chokeholds, Local Police Departments May Not Comply (Dana)
The author writes, “The national outcry over the deaths of George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, Breonna Taylor and other Black Americans at the hands of police has Congress moving with unusual speed to debate sweeping reforms such as bans on chokeholds and no-knock warrants. The bill House Democrats are expected to bring to the floor Thursday goes further than the version Senate Republicans plan to call up this week. … The proposals rely on the threat of a loss of federal funding for many of the suggested changes. When that has been tried in the past, federal oversight has been slow, and some states have determined that the funding cuts are smaller than the cost of complying.”
Why New Zealand Decided to Go for Full Elimination of the Coronavirus (Gerry)
From New Scientist: “Michael Baker, the doctor who devised New Zealand’s aggressive coronavirus response, explains what inspired his successful strategy.”
A Look Inside Thailand, Which Prevented Coronavirus From Gaining a Foothold (Mili)
The author writes, “The first coronavirus case outside of China appeared in Thailand. When the news hit in January, uneasiness spread among the population. Few people seemed confident that our government could handle the situation. … Expecting the worst, I began photographing Bangkok in the early days of the pandemic. I was especially afraid of a runaway outbreak in the city’s slums and that our healthcare facilities would be overrun. It didn’t turn out that way. The work has been frustrating at times, not because there’ve been so many cases but because there’ve been so few. Much to my relief, I am gradually running out of things to shoot.”
Nearly 2,000 Black Americans Were Lynched During Reconstruction (Mili)
From the Smithsonian: “A new report brings the number of victims of racial terror killings between 1865 and 1950 to almost 6,500.”
One-Fifth of Earth’s Ocean Floor Is Now Mapped (Dana)
The author writes, “When the Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project was launched in 2017, only 6% of the global ocean bottom had been surveyed to what might be called modern standards. … ‘Today we stand at the 19% level. That means we’ve got another 81% of the oceans still to survey, still to map. That’s an area about twice the size of Mars that we have to capture in the next decade,’ project director Jamie McMichael-Phillips told BBC News.”
Seattle Art Museum Isn’t Dissolving (Reader Steve)
The author writes, “With the subject line ‘Announcing a Ground-breaking Initiative for Racial Equity,’ a news release purportedly from the Seattle Art Museum went out to members of the media Monday morning declaring that the museum board would ‘dissolve the SAM corporation by 2022, transferring all assets and endowments to a trust governed by a coalition of local BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) art organizations.’ The release, sent from an email address that appeared to be the same as that used by the organization’s public-relations department, looked like the real thing — but it was fake. It said as much at the bottom, with a paragraph starting with, ‘This is a work of speculative fiction. Facts and quotations are invented.’ But by the afternoon, the Puget Sound Business Journal published a story from the fake news release, which then circulated on social media.”
