This is a temperature check.
Photo: Angelo Carconi/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
After more than two months in lockdown, Italians are being allowed to venture out more this week. The nation that has seen more than 32,000 COVID-19 deaths (with many more suspected) allowed bars, churches, restaurants, and salons to reopen Monday. Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte acknowledged that easing the lockdown before contact tracing and mass testing protocols are in place is a “calculated risk.” But, he added: “We have to accept it, otherwise we will never be able to start up again.”
Italians have greeted the reopening by flocking to salons — with manicures, pedicures, and body waxing in high demand, according to one industry representative. But restaurants and many shops have not seen as much business. And some owners have calculated that reopening, even with social-distancing measures in place and a cautious population, is not worth the trouble. Here are images of what life is like in a former epicenter of the pandemic.
Hair salons in Italy are open and busy this week.
Photo: Marco Passaro/Shutterstock
A waiter measures the distance between customers at a Rome pizzeria. They are required to remain one meter apart.
Photo: Alessandro Serrano’/AGF/Shuttersock
A restaurant in Milan uses Plexiglass barriers to divide diners.
Photo: Massimo Alberico/Shutterstock
Pasta and plexiglass.
Photo: Massimo Alberico/Shutterstock/Massimo Alberico/Shutterstock
Social distancing on a gondola in newly reopened Venice.
Photo: Andrea Pattaro/AFP via Getty Images
Italy is home to 104,000 hair salons, many more than European countries of a similar size.
Photo: Alessio Coser/Getty Images
The only good news is it’s less than the 15,000 plus cases recorded on Sunday
Florida reported 12,624 new coronavirus cases on Monday, the second-highest total for a single day in the pandemic, out of more than 112,200 test results.
Thom Tillis’ message at the (virtual) NCGOP convention: “The stakes are very high this election, but you know why I know we’re going to win? Because people remember how good their lives were back in February.”
So hard to watch @FoxNews anymore. They are working so hard against the people (viewers) that got them there. Their contributors are a disaster, and all over the place. The Radical Left has scared Fox into submission, just like they have so many others. Sad, but we will WIN!
The N.F.L. team in Washington plans to announce Monday that it will drop Redskins from its name, according to a person with direct knowledge of the decision, yielding to sponsors and Native American activists who have long criticized it a racist slur.
The person who confirmed the decision spoke on condition of anonymity because the team had yet to make the official announcement. The anticipated move was first reported by Sports Business Journal on Sunday and followed by other news organizations.
The team, one of the oldest in the N.F.L., was not expected to announce a new name on Monday as it continues to evaluate possibilities.
New Zealand has lifted almost all of its coronavirus restrictions after reporting no active cases in the country. At midnight local time, all of New Zealand moved to level one, the lowest of a four-tier alert system. Under new rules, social distancing is not required and there are no limits on public gatherings, but borders remain closed to foreigners.
New Zealand has reported no new Covid-19 cases for more than two weeks. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told reporters she did “a little dance” when she was told the country no longer had any active virus cases.
Yesterday was the first day since March that there were no new Covid-19 deaths in New York City. Keep wearing your masks and keep social distancing. It works.
[A]fter a prolonged battle against what Trump’s biggest supporters see as a rigged judicial system staffed by Obama-era bureaucrats, [Michael] Flynn’s status as a deep state-fighting warrior has only grown. And with Flynn on the verge of potentially having criminal charges dismissed altogether, Trump allies are pushing the campaign to give Flynn the ultimate comeback: hitting the campaign trail for the president, according to nine people inside or close to the Trump campaign. …
Three people affiliated with the campaign said they would welcome Flynn back — perhaps reprising his role as an opening act at Trump rallies or a TV surrogate — between now and Election Day, although a Trump campaign official said the campaign has not approached Flynn about taking a formal position.
The move would bring Flynn back to where it all started in 2016, but this time emboldened by his journey — from little-known campaign surrogate, to White House national security adviser, to indicted Russia probe target, to, potentially, the man who defeated Robert Mueller’s prosecutors.
A long-lasting, widespread and intense heat wave is set to swallow the nation, arriving right at the historical peak in annual temperatures. While hot weather is expected in the summertime, the magnitude, duration, and intensity of the upcoming heat wave will be impressive.
A wide swath of the Lower 48 will be engulfed by temperatures 10 or more degrees above normal, with a sprawling heat dome likely to park over the nation’s heartland, lingering for weeks. The combination of heat and stifling humidity could even catapult heat index levels into the triple digits near the coasts. …
With the heat will come collateral impacts, including the risk of strong to severe windstorms for some. Climate change continues to worsen and extremity heat events, increasing their severity. A recent analysis by Climate Central found that the number of days each year with overlapping high heat and humidity has doubled across much of the United States since 1980.
An American private citizen worked with foreign spies to damage one presidential candidate and help the other. That president accepted the help. When caught, the private citizen lied. When the private citizen was punished, the president commuted his sentence.
The top writer for Fox News host Tucker Carlson has for years been using a pseudonym to post bigoted remarks on an online forum [called AutoAdmit, also known as XOXOhth,] that is a hotbed for racist, sexist, and other offensive content, CNN Business learned this week.
Just this week, the writer, Blake Neff, responded to a thread started by another user in 2018 with the subject line, “Would u let a JET BLACK congo n****er do lasik eye surgery on u for 50% off?” Neff wrote, “I wouldn’t get LASIK from an Asian for free, so no.” (The subject line was not censored on the forum.) On June 5, Neff wrote, “Black doods staying inside playing Call of Duty is probably one of the biggest factors keeping crime down.” On June 24, Neff commented, “Honestly given how tired black people always claim to be, maybe the real crisis is their lack of sleep.” On June 26, Neff wrote that the only people who care about changing the name of the NFL’s Washington Redskins are “white libs and their university-’educated’ pets.”
And over the course of five years, Neff has maintained a lengthy thread in which he has derided a woman and posted information about her dating life that has invited other users to mock her and invade her privacy. There has at times also been overlap between some material he posted or saw on the forum and Carlson’s show.
Georgia reported another record number of cases on Friday (almost 5,000)
[Atlanta] Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is preparing to roll back the city’s reopening plans as coronavirus cases surge, a spokesperson told Channel 2 Action News Friday. The city will go back to Phase 1, in which all residents are ordered to stay home except for essential trips. Atlanta entered Phase 2 at the end of May, which was described as an “easing” of restrictions phase. …
Just had a long talk with #RogerStone. He says he doesn’t want a pardon (which implies guilt) but a commutation, and says he thinks #Trump will give it to him. “He knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him. It would have eased my situation considerably. But I didn’t.”
NEW: Facebook is considering a ban on political ads on its social network in the days leading up to the U.S. election in November. No decision yet, but it’s being discussed, according to sources
