| Possible recalibration | Saudi Arabia reveled in Donald Trump's decision to make the kingdom his first overseas destination as president. As Glen Carey reports, it'll have to decide how welcoming to be for Joe Biden if he wins the election in November. In addition to signaling greater willingness to engage with Iran, the Democratic presidential nominee has described the kingdom as a "pariah" and threatened to stop arms sales to it. Unorthodox convention | Trump's idea to give his nomination acceptance speech from the South Lawn of the White House lays out a minefield of problems for the officials charged with putting such an event together. Legal experts say White House staff would violate a federal law that bans U.S. government employees from conducting political activities. -
Tennessee's Republican Senate primary today provides the latest test of the potency of Trump's endorsement. -
Trump is seeking a fourth debate with Biden, or for one of the three planned debates to be held sooner, as early voters prepare to begin casting their ballots from September. -
Click here for more on how Super PACS are pouring millions of dollars into advertising to target a key voting bloc: white, rural and working class voters who swung from Barack Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016. Time out | Twitter and Facebook blocked a video shared by accounts linked to Trump for violating their policies on coronavirus misinformation. The Trump re-election campaign's Twitter account was briefly banned from sending new tweets after it posted a clip of an interview Trump did yesterday with Fox News in which he said children were "virtually immune" from the virus. - Trump's nickname for his opponent is finding traction on social media sites: "Sleepy Joe" even garnered more posts than the Super Bowl and the musical "Hamilton" so far this year.
Cycle of inequality | An almost $600 payment to anyone who buys a new bike in Italy is drawing attention to how the trillions being spent globally on easing the economic pain of the Covid-19 crisis aren't making it to people who need it most. As Alessandra Migliaccio and Vernon Silver explain, cash for everything from rebates on restaurant meals to tax breaks for megacorporations are helping widen income gaps the pandemic has exposed and exacerbated.  Italy's "bonus bici" program covers 60% of the cost of bicycles up to 833 euros. Bike sales in Rome tripled in the weeks after the program was announced. Photographer: Diana Bagnoli/Getty Images Divided leadership | Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa accused his deputy of plotting against him, highlighting a damaging rift between the nation's two most powerful men as the economy implodes. While Vice President Constantino Chiwenga — a former armed forces chief — denied the claims, some military leaders and their allies have grown increasingly impatient as inflation exceeds 700% and shortages of fuel and food bite. What to Watch -
The White House and congressional Democrats are running up against tomorrow's self-imposed deadline to strike a deal on a virus relief package with little sign they've narrowed most fundamental differences. -
A Chinese court sentenced a Canadian man to death on drug charges, a decision that may further inflame already fraught tensions between Beijing and Ottawa following capital punishment rulings handed down to other Canadians. -
The U.S. is projected to see the worst reversal of fortune this year in a ranking of global economic misery, underscoring just how much havoc the pandemic has wrought. And finally … Today is the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, marked in Japan by a minute's silence at 8:15 a.m., the time the U.S. carried out the attack in 1945. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe renewed calls to abolish nuclear weapons and warned of a worsening global security situation at a ceremony in Hiroshima attended by elderly survivors, diplomats and politicians. "As the only country to suffer nuclear attacks, it is our duty to advance efforts to realize a world without nuclear weapons," Abe said.  A man bows in front of the cenotaph dedicated to the memory of the victims of the atomic bomb, in Hiroshima, Japan, in 2016. Photographer: Yuriko Nakao | 
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