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Places

Summer travel in America: High hopes, false starts

July 7, 2020

Camping, biking and hiking are on the rise, as Americans head outdoors and hit the road in search of some semblance of a normal summer-vacation season during the COVID-19 pandemic. But surging infection rates and shifting, inconsistent government policies are putting a damper on ambitious plans to re-open tourist economies. Hawaii and Puerto Rico: Islands […]

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Police, protests, and the pandemic converge in India, Africa, China and elsewhere

June 3, 2020

The killing of George Floyd has sparked angry protests and violent repression not just in the United States, but around the world, where pandemic lockdowns have also mixed with authoritarian abuses. • Related: “A deadly convergence of racism, brutality and disease across America — and the world” India: Brutality day by day India, a multiparty […]

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Africans are fleeing racism in China

April 24, 2020

Thousands of African migrants living in Guangzhou in southern China are being targeted by racist attacks and policies. The problem has become so bad that one African nation has even begun evacuating its citizens from China. The reason? Besides simple prejudice, Africans are being blamed for exposing Chinese people to COVID-19. African students in Chinese […]

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Just what, exactly, is a ‘wet market,’ and should they be illegal in China?

April 17, 2020

The conventional wisdom is that the coronavirus behind the COVID-19 pandemic jumped to human beings from animals sold for food in an open-air “wet market” in Wuhan, China. China has subsequently been widely criticized for permitted wet markets to remain open. Yet it turns out that these types of marketplaces are not the problem — […]

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Rent strike! How COVID-19 is disrupting rent, evictions and the housing market

April 13, 2020

The story is the same across the United States. Millions of households — one third of renters nationwide — have been unable to make rent payments in April, due to the pandemic lockdowns that have swept the country. Real estate prognosticators fear this could lead to a catastrophic “domino effect” of missed rent, late mortgage, and […]

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Across Africa, musicians (and the occasional president) battle COVID-19 with song

April 7, 2020

Across a continent where Internet access isn’t always easy to come by, messages about the COVID-19 pandemic are passed along through pop music. Popular musicians in Africa are recording new songs with public-health messages, as well as videos for Youtube, for those who can access it. Liberia’s singing president And a surprising number of presidents […]

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