Stranger Than Fiction

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TOP NEWS

• Reopening businesses are being forced to adjust to being upended by COVID-19. Some adjust by laying off workers, others raise prices. As businesses come back online, they’re being forced to make tough choices to make the math work.

• China turns the screws on Hong Kong protests. A new national security law aims to put pressure on Hong Kong’s autonomy and crack down on protests.

• Pakistan International Airlines flight crashes with 98 on board. The flight was due to land in Karachi at 3pm local time. Many travelers were likely headed to celebrate the festival of Eid, which is this weekend.

• Trump won’t close country if second COVID-19 wave hits. “We’re not going to close the country — we’re going to put out the fires,” Trump said on Thursday. Meanwhile, the CDC quietly updated their guidance to say that COVID-19 “does not spread easily” from contaminated surfaces.

• Secretary of State Pompeo used government resources to take unannounced meetings with corporate leaders, political figures while considering a Senate and potential Presidential run in 2024. Pompeo requested that the inspector general of the State Department, who was looking into Pompeo’s misuse of resources, be fired, according to President Trump. Democratic leaders in Congress have opened an investigation in to the firing.

WHAT I’M READING + WATCHING + LISTENING TO

• Zuckerberg said he expects up to half of Facebook’s more than 45,000 employees to work from home within 10 years.

• U.S. arrests former Green Beret Michael Taylor and his son, Peter, in connection with Carlos Ghosn’s escape from Japan.

• When a billionaire owner isn’t enough.

• Apple is in the early stages of developing a TV series about Gawker.

THE COMMENT

“The only way to deter any of this is to make sure Beijing officials know they will pay a heavy price. Hong Kongers may feel they have no choice but to protest in the streets even at the risk of arrest and imprisonment. They may lose but they will expose Beijing’s ugly side to the world. A bipartisan group in the U.S. Congress is advancing legislation that would sanction officials who implement the national-security law. The U.S. will also have to sell more arms to help Taiwan defend itself.” - WSJ Editorial Board

THE STRANGEST

• Nearly half of Twitter accounts discussing “Reopening America” may be bots

THE AV ROOM