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China's new Hong Kong power grab

QuickTake Tonight
Bloomberg

Greetings, QuickTake readers! In this edition: U.S. unemployment hits Great Recession levels, Trump to exit Open Skies treaty with Russia, and a new, larger generation of locusts targets East Africa.

China mulls Hong Kong security law

China's parliament on Thursday announced dramatic plans to write a new national security law to limit opposition activity in Hong Kong. A spokesman said the National People's Congress will consider a bill to "establish enforcement mechanisms" for the former British colony that would curb secession, sedition, foreign interference, and terrorism—a move likely to fuel fresh street protests and stoke U.S.-China tensions.

"The is the end of Hong Kong," said one opposition lawmaker. "I foresee the status of Hong Kong as an international city will be gone very soon." Another pro-democracy official called it the "saddest day in Hong Kong history."

On Thursday, Trump warned the U.S. would respond "very strongly" to moves to curtail democracy protests in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, two U.S. senators, Democrat Chris Van Hollen and Republican Pat Toomey, introduced a bill to sanction officials enforcing the proposed law, calling it a "brazen interference" in Hong Kong's autonomy.

$ignificant figures

2.44 million. That many Americans filed for unemployment last week, bringing the two-month total during the pandemic to 38.6 million—roughly equivalent to all of the initial claims filed during the Great Recession.

50%. Half of Facebook's employees could be working remotely in the next five to 10 years, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, adding, the company plans to "aggressively open up remote hiring" starting immediately in the U.S.

12.5 mph. The speed limit set for the fleet of e-scooters for a U.K. trial next month while the government fast-tracks new road laws to help public transit networks adhere to social distancing guidelines. 

Highly quotable

"Until they adhere, we will pull out." Trump said the U.S. will exit the Open Skies Treaty, a U.S.-Russia arms control pact that permits 35 nations to fly over each other's territory, because Russia violated it.

"I'm burying my mother." What one woman said at Sao Paulo's Vila Formosa, Latin America's largest cemetery, as Brazil reported a daily record of 1,188 coronavirus deaths in 24 hours.

"I was given a choice." Trump didn't wear a face mask during a tour of a Ford factory outside Detroit that had been repurposed to make ventilators, defying the automaker's policies even as U.S virus deaths near 100,000.

This is not normal

"Triple threat." Covid-19, deadly floods and billions of new locusts imperil millions of people in East Africa, officials said, as the World Bank OK'd a $500-million plan to guard the food supply in the most vulnerable nations.

The future is now

"It's not science fiction." New York City's MTA launched a first-of-its-kind decontamination program to deploy 150 virus-killing UV lamps on busses and subways to eliminate the spread of Covid-19.

What's good

Feeding the masses. During India's ongoing lockdown, the Bangla Sahib Gurdwara temple in New Delhi has kept open its kitchen where Sikh volunteers are cooking 100,000 free meals a day for people in shelters.

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BTW: Noma, the four-time winner of World's Best Restaurant, reopened today in Copenhagen—as a wine bar with burgers. Check it out.

Thanks for reading!
-Andrew Mach

 

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