Feature Film Friday

Protest & Coronavirus Updates

Global cases rose to nearly 7.58 million yesterday, with over 422,800 deaths. The number of confirmed U.S. cases rose to nearly 2.09 million, with 116,016 confirmed deaths.

• Beijing reported its first new confirmed COVID-19 case in nearly 2 months on Thursday.
• Nashville Mayor John Cooper said he will delay the city’s phase 3 reopening due to an increase in cases over the past two weeks. See how cases are changing in your state.
• The first double lung transplant in the U.S. due to COVID-19 was successfully performed on a young woman at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago last week.
• The Senate Armed Forces Committee voted to remove Confederate names from military assets on Wednesday.
• 53% of Americans now support the Black Lives Matter movement, up from ~37% in 2017. View the support and opposition graph for BLM here.

Trump Authorizes ICC Sanctions

President Trump authorized economic and travel sanctions against members of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Thursday. The sanctions are targeted against any court worker directly involved in investigating American troops - and those of allied nations - for possible war crimes in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

More: On March 5, the ICC ruled in favor of an investigation into alleged war crimes committed by U.S. troops, the Afghan government, and the Taliban over the past 17 years.

Former DEA Official Convicted Of Fraud Scheme

Garrison Courtney, a former top DEA spokesman, pleaded guilty to defrauding several companies of more than $4 million on Thursday. Courtney admitted to duping 13 private companies by pretending to be a CIA operative, going as far as having his victims sign fake government non-disclosure agreements and forging messages from the U.S. attorney general.

The Coronavirus Effect

• Major U.S. stock indices fell on Thursday (Dow -6.9%, S&P -5.89%, Nasdaq -5.27%).
• Another 1.5 million Americans filed for unemployment last week. Economists are reportedly still trying to reconcile weekly data with last week’s surprising May jobs report.
• U.S. mortgage rates are at an all-time low according to Mortgage News Daily, with average rates falling below three percent (2.94%) for the first time ever.
• Instacart announced a $225 million round of funding that values the company at $13.7 billion. Instacart’s share of the U.S. grocery delivery market has grown from ~30% in February to 55% in May.

Trust Issues

According to the WSJ, the European Union is planning to file antitrust charges against Amazon as early as next week or the week after. The charges will reportedly focus on the company’s treatment of third-party sellers, and their role as both a seller and operator of the marketplace.

More: In April, a WSJ investigative report revealed that Amazon employees used data from independent sellers on the company’s marketplace to develop competing products.

Face The Nation

On Thursday, Microsoft president Brad Smith said the company would no longer sell facial recognition software to police until a national law “grounded in human rights” is put into place governing its use. Microsoft’s announcement comes days after similar decisions from Amazon and IBM.

Walk, Tony, Walk!

In 2015, Paula and Mark Hudgell began fostering baby Tony, a little boy who had been so severely abused by his biological parents that he was on the verge of death. To save his life, the medical staff at Evelina London Children’s hospital had to amputate both of the boy’s legs.

Now, the five-year-old Tony wants to give back to Evelina London – where he still receives treatment – by walking 10 kilometers on his new prosthetic legs this month. Tony began walking last week with an initial goal of raising £500 for the hospital; shockingly, the fundraiser has already received more than £367,913 ($461,990) in donations.

The Grow Must Go On

When third-grader Kyra Sutton of Riegelwood, North Carolina, received a small cabbage plant in early March as part of a class project from her elementary school teacher, she was excited to practice her gardening skills. Shortly after Kyra planted the cabbage in her great-grandparents’ garden, her teacher scrapped the project due to the pandemic.

Determined to press on, Kyra continued to cultivate her cabbage until the end of the school year. At that point, the vegetable had reached an astounding 31 pounds (photos). The gung-ho gardener, who shared her crop with dozens of neighbors, has been nominated by her teachers for a national scholarship contest hosted by Bonnie Plants, the project’s sponsor.

Speech Teacher Lost For Words

Cíntia Bonfante Pereira is a speech therapist in Brazil who specializes in children with speech delays due to Down syndrome. However, on the day of her recent wedding, it was Cíntia who found herself at a loss for words.

In a surprise that brought his bride to tears, her husband, Jose Vitor Flach, invited Cíntia’s speech therapy students to their wedding to serve as a parade of ring bearers. In a heartwarming video of the ceremony, Cíntia’s students proudly process down the aisle of the church to deliver the rings and embrace the newlyweds.