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CORONAVIRUS: Recently, nine major drugmakers pledged to thoroughly vet any coronavirus vaccine - versus just rushing it out. Hint: Prez Trump has promised that a coronavirus vaccine would be available to the American public by November 3rd (aka Election Day). Cue concerns about the safety of a vaccine if it comes out too quickly. On that note: Oxford University is temporarily halting its vaccine trials due to an apparent safety issue - specifically, a “potentially unexplained illness” that popped up in one of the trials. Meanwhile, school started for lots of students in the US yesterday. Aaaaand shut right back down again for students in Hartford, Connecticut, where the school system was the victim of a ransomware attack.
USA: Say hello to E. Jean Carroll. She’s a 76 year old woman who accused Prez Trump of raping her in the 1990s. The Prez denied the claim - so Carroll sued for defamation. Fast forward to yesterday, and the Justice Dept says it’s replacing Trump’s private legal team to defend him in this lawsuit. Meaning taxpayer dollars will essentially be going towards Trump’s defense. This is not a super common thing for the Justice Dept to do, BTW. Also in the US: Rochester’s police chief is stepping down amid protests over the death of Daniel Prude, a Black man who was suffocated by police officers. Speaking of which, a police officer just shot a 13 year old with autism in Salt Lake City. Stay tuned. And lastly, the Oscars is intro’ing new rules that require diversity for movies vying to snag ‘Best Picture.’
WORLD: Meet the Rohingya, a mostly-Mulsim minority group from Myanmar who have been labelled the world’s most persecuted minority. In 2017, Myanmar’s military burned hundreds of Rohingya villages and attacked, raped, abused, tortured, and killed thousands of people - including hundreds of children. At least 740,000 Rohingya fled across the border to Bangladesh, where they’ve been ever since. Cue global outrage. Now, years later, Myanmar soldiers are speaking about the violence for the first time. One soldier testified he was told to “kill all you see.” Stay tuned. In other news, recently, Belarus’ opposition leader was abducted by gov security agents - and juuust managed to avoid being kicked out of the country.
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