Here are the headlines you Need2Know for Thursday, July 8, 2021:
HAITI IN CRISIS
LATEST: Haitian authorities say they have killed four suspected members of the hit squad that assassinated President Jovenel Moïse 24 hours ago. Moïse was killed at his home in the capital of Port-au-Prince in a brazen attack by gunmen with high-capacity weapons who reportedly claimed to be U.S. DEA agents. The first lady, Martine Moïse, was also shot; she has been airlifted to Miami where she’s in stable condition. Haiti’s interim prime minister put the country into a “state of siege” and said he was in charge. The UN Security Council is set to meet today on the unfolding crisis. AP
BACKGROUND: Moïse had been ruling by decree for over a year, refusing to leave office even though his term had officially expired. Haitians have been protesting in the streets amid an explosion in gang violence, with some armed gangs said to have ties to Moïse. A COVID surge is making matters worse given that Haiti is one of a handful of countries that is yet to have given a single vaccination. WASH POST
AFGHANISTAN: THE END
President Biden is planning to address the U.S. troop withdrawal in Afghanistan today, which is now complete “for all intents and purposes,” according to officials. The rapid drawdown is coinciding with major Taliban gains as fighters push through government-controlled districts across the country. Afghan officials are said to be furious at the speed in which the withdrawal is happening, especially after American troops left the main operating base in the middle of the night last weekend, reportedly turning off the lights without notifying the Afghan military ahead of time. POLITICO
DELTA DOMINANT
As expected, Delta is now the dominant strain of COVID in the U.S., accounting for 52% of new infections per the CDC’s latest estimates. Andy Slavitt, the former pointman on the White House COVID response team, called Delta a kind of “COVID-19 on steroids” but reiterated that the variant poses “very little threat to you” if you’re vaccinated. The pandemic’s official global death toll has passed 4 million -- roughly the population of Oregon -- though experts agree it’s probably much higher. CNN
OLYMPIC MESS
The Japanese government is set to impose a state of emergency during the Olympics when they open two weeks from tomorrow. Japan is dealing with a surge in COVID cases and a slow vaccination drive that is threatening to upend the country’s plans for the event, already a year delayed. The emergency declaration means the IOC could decide to pull the plug on allowing spectators at all. Right now, only local fans are allowed to attend. REUTERS
TRUMP V. BIG TECH
Former President Trump filed lawsuits against Google, Facebook and Twitter, arguing that the tech giants and their CEOs wrongly censored him when they banned his accounts in the wake of the Capitol riot. The class-action lawsuits, for which Trump will serve as lead plaintiff, are not likely to make it very far because those companies are legally protected against civil action over third-party content they host or remove, and are not bound by the First Amendment. Trump’s political operation immediately launched a fundraising campaign off the announcement. PROTOCOL
YOU'VE REACHED YOUR LIMIT...
USA Today is going behind a paywall, the last big national daily newspaper to make readers pay to access its journalism online. The Gannett-owned paper will keep some articles free as it pushes a tiered subscription model similar to other big outlets. Newspapers have been hemorrhaging ad revenue for years as readership has declined, since print ads are worth much more than their digital counterparts, and online subscriptions are seen as one of the only ways forward. NIEMAN LAB
EURO FINAL
England will meet Italy in the Euro 2020 final on Sunday after beating Denmark, 2-1, in an extra-time thriller that had 60,000 fans rocking Wembley Stadium. It’s England’s first men’s major soccer tournament final since winning the World Cup in 1966. The final is Sunday at 3 p.m. ET. For fans in the U.S., ESPN and ABC will stream the match through their websites. B/R
XOXO
The much-anticipated Gossip Girl reboot arrives on HBO Max today. The show’s creators say the new series isn’t exactly a reboot -- it exists in the same cinematic universe as the original -- but more of an updated version of the teen soap opera for the modern era of social media, #MeToo, and Black Lives Matter. The cast is more diverse and the storylines are more in line with the current zeitgeist. But is it any good? Not really, at least according to the early reviews that call it “clumsy,” "half-baked” and a “bland rehash” of the CW original. ROTTEN TOMATOES
SPOTTED...
...Sanitation workers, grocery store employees, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, cops, firefighters and other essential workers, marching in a ticker-tape parade down NYC’s Canyon of Heroes: WATCH
…the Ever Given container ship, finally leaving the Suez Canal more than three months after it got stuck. The ship’s owners made an agreement with Egypt to get it moving again: SEE IT
...Ella Emhoff, stepdaughter of Vice President Harris, making her high-fashion runway debut at Balenciaga’s Paris show: SEE PICS
LEFTOVERS: SONG OF THE SUMMER
Juvenile has transformed his 1999 smash hit Back That Thang Up for Hot Vax Summer. The reworked jam is called Vax That Thang Up and implores listeners to get vaccinated so that they can go back to enjoying the finer things in life (in this case, mainly, hooking up -- the rerelease is a collaboration with the dating app BLK). The rapper says he wanted to “do something positive for my people” with the vaccine anthem: LISTEN
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