New York Says Bye Bye to Zoom Schooling

The European Union has ordered its airlines to skirt Belarus and sever direct connections with the former Soviet nation as a part of sanctions against the country’s authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, who forced a Ryanair plane carrying a dissident to land in Minsk on Sunday. The dissident, Roman Protasevich, was then arrested. (Sources: AP, NYT)

2. Zoom Schooling Over

New York City will require all public school students to attend physical classes from September, ending all remote learning. Are you anxious, relieved or conflicted about the end of remote learning in America’s largest public school system? Vote here or on Twitter. (Sources: WSJ, NPR)

3. Bubble Bursts

New Zealand has paused its travel bubble with the Australian state of Victoria after a fresh COVID-19 outbreak in Melbourne. The U.S. has advised American citizens not to travel to Japan, which is hosting the Olympics in two months, because of fresh cases there. And doctors in Afghanistan are worried about the war-torn nation’s ability to handle the spread of the dangerous Indian variant of the virus. (Sources: NZ Herald, CNN, Guardian)

4. Mali’s Going Coup-Coup

One coup wasn’t enough. Mali’s military has arrested the country’s interim president, prime minister and defense minister nine months after an earlier coup deposed previous leader Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta. The United Nations, African Union and the EU have condemned the arrests. (Sources: Al Jazeera, BBC)

A giant river otter was spotted in an Argentine national park four decades after the species was thought to have disappeared for good. The otters usually live in families, so conservationists are hoping for more cuteness in the coming days. 

The media-savvy CEO of the world’s largest manufacturer of vaccines says he loves taking risks. Which is just as well, since his $12.8 billion Serum Institute of India, a key supplier of COVID-19 shots to pharma giants and multiple countries, finds itself the target of criticism because his own country faces a shortage of doses. Now riding out the storm in London, Poonawalla boasts a stash of originals from Monet, Picasso and Dali in his Mumbai home and spends weekends on his stud farm. At the moment, though, the world’s nations are wondering if they’ve bet on the right horse amid the pandemic.

2. Dimas Tadeu Covas

A devout Catholic, Covas heads São Paulo’s Instituto Butantan, Latin America’s largest vaccine manufacturer, at a time when Brazil, and the region, are among the biggest battlegrounds against a rampaging COVID-19 pandemic. In December, he struck a deal with China’s Sinovac for the manufacture of their COVID-19 vaccines in Brazil, a game-changing move that also pulled him into the country’s heated politics between a dismissive President Jair Bolsonaro and an opposing local governor. Covas hasn’t slept much this past year and lost 22 pounds between the start of the pandemic and December. But in March, Butantan developed a Brazilian vaccine against the virus. Can Covas — and Latin America — finally breathe easy?

3. Aurélia Nguyen

For all the vaccines that Poonawalla and Covas churn out, the world won’t be successful unless Nguyen wins. A rare woman at the top of a male-dominated vaccine industry, she heads COVAX, the World Health Organization’s initiative to get COVID-19 vaccines to poorer countries at affordable rates. She’s in charge of a $6 billion war chest to deliver shots, but must compete with wealthy nations with far larger budgets also trying to buy up the world’s vaccine doses.

Acclaimed chef Marcus Samuelsson gives a cooking demonstration (Cuban-coffee tuna tataki, anyone?), plus talks about elevating the voices of Black chefs and his struggles with identity. Watch now.

The protests in the U.S. against police violence echoed around the world — and nowhere more so than in Africa’s most populous nation. A years-long campaign by Nigerian activists against a police unit called the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), notorious for kidnapping and murdering people, finally reached a tipping point. After weeks of protests, Nigeria's government finally scrapped SARS.

2. Brazil’s BLM

Brazil’s Black population has long faced police violence and racism even though they constitute a majority of the South American nation’s population. But the wave of anger that swept the U.S. after Floyd's death also hit Brazil’s shores, fueling a powerful Black Lives Matter movement that refuses to endure systemic racism anymore. That movement led to the country’s Supreme Court banning most police raids on the country’s favelas during the pandemic — though President Jair Bolsonaro has disregarded the ruling.

3. Diplomatic Stick

The impact of Floyd’s killing — and other police attacks on Black Americans — is also playing out in the hallowed halls of global diplomacy. Long pilloried by the U.S. for their problematic human rights record, China and Russia have returned the favor over the past year, citing America’s terrible history on race to question its credibility as a moral force. 

More than ever, the past year has revealed racial, economic and linguistic disparities in health care access and outcomes. Lopez wants to create a consortium of translators who can advocate for patients. If you want to help, please let us know HERE.

And some more good news: Former OZY Genius Winner, Rohan Pavuluri developed the largest free bankruptcy app out there using his award, securing a place on the TIME 100 Best Inventions of 2020 list. Check out his TED talk.

1. Fearless and Fair

The outcome of Malawi’s national elections in February 2020 was in keeping with a pan-African trend: Incumbent President Peter Mutharika was declared the winner amid serious allegations of fraud. But what followed was a distinct break with the norm. Under Chief Justice Andrew Nyirenda, the country’s Supreme Court ordered a fresh election. A furious Mutharika tried to forcibly retire Nyirenda, ostensibly so he could “write his biography.” But the nation’s judicial community stood up against that move. Mutharika lost the reelection, Malawian democracy won and Nyirenda is still chief justice. The biography will have to wait.

2. Waste No More

For years, Mulanje Prison in southern Malawi has made inmates chop trees from forests for fuel. Now it is turning to prisoners’ poop instead, feeding into a biogas plant that produces energy needed for cooking that’s clean and cheaper. Malawi suffers from one of the highest deforestation rates in sub-Saharan Africa. Mulanje Prison is showing an alternative.

3. Fish and … Porridge?

It’s not the most obvious of combinations. But nsima, a sticky and stiff porridge made from corn, goes brilliantly with chambo, a local tilapia-like fish found in Lake Malawi, for a wholesome, healthy and tasty meal.

Brewed in traditional clay pots, this Mexican coffee has an earthy taste that’s amplified by a cocktail of spices — cinnamon, star anise and cloves — and the unique sweetness of piloncillo or unrefined cane sugar.

2. Kopi Joss

This one’s only for the adventurous. The Indonesian city of Yogyakarta has a specialty coffee that involves dunking a lump of hot charcoal into your black brew. Apparently, it kills the coffee’s acidity. Just wait until the charcoal cools down before sipping, though — or it might kill you.

3. Peppercorn Coffee

Like the Mexicans, Moroccans love spicing their coffee, but they don’t settle just for cinnamon or cloves. Real Moroccan coffee is incomplete without black pepper in it. Clearly the Sahara isn’t hot enough.