Thursday Briefing: Opening ceremony director fired on Tokyo Games eve over Holocaust joke

Thursday, July 22, 2021

by Linda Noakes

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Here's what you need to know.

China evacuates tens of thousands as storms spread north, 'pingdemic' grips Britain as fears of food shortages grow, and Pennsylvania decertifies a county's voting machines

Today's biggest stories

Japan's aerobatics team, the Blue Impulse, during a practice run for the opening ceremony at the Olympic Stadium, Tokyo, July 21, 2021 REUTERS/Issei Kato

WORLD

Tokyo Olympics organizers have fired the opening ceremony director on the eve of the event after reports emerged of a past joke he had made about the Holocaust, while media said former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a strong advocate of the Games, would also not attend.

Tens of thousands of people are being evacuated from flood-hit regions of central China as officials raise the death toll from heavy rains that have deluged Henan province for almost a week to 33 people. We look at how, from China to Germany, floods are exposing climate vulnerability.

Britain's supermarkets, wholesalers and hauliers are struggling to ensure stable food and fuel supplies after an official health app told hundreds of thousands of workers to isolate after contact with someone with COVID-19.

Taliban insurgents control about half of Afghanistan's district centers, the senior U.S. general said, indicating a rapidly deteriorating security situation.

Israel's parliamentary review panel may recommend changes to defence export policy over high-profile allegations that spyware sold by Israeli cyber firm NSO Group has been abused in several countries, a senior lawmaker said.

Peruvian police say they have dismantled an alleged criminal ring that charged as much $21,000 per bed for seriously ill COVID-19 patients in a state-run hospital, aggravating care in a country hit by one of the world's deadliest outbreaks of the virus.

President Joe Biden listens to a presentation during a tour of an IBEW/NECA union electrician training center in Cincinnati, Ohio, July 21, 2021. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

U.S.


U.S. Senate Republicans blocked a move to open debate on a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure measure that is a top priority for President Joe Biden, but the chamber is poised to take it up again as early as Monday.

The top Republican in the House of Representatives withdrew his five nominees to serve on the special committee probing the deadly January 6 attack on the Capitol after Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected two of them.

Pennsylvania's top election official has decertified the voting equipment of a rural county that participated in an audit of the 2020 election requested by a Republican state lawmaker and staunch ally of former President Donald Trump.

A federal judge barred the state of Arkansas, at least for now, from enforcing a first-in-the-nation law that would ban doctors from providing puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones or gender transition surgeries to minors.

A destructive Oregon wildfire that ranks as the largest among dozens raging across the drought-parched Western United States in recent weeks was ignited by lightning but smoldered for days before it was detected, forest officials said.

BUSINESS

Stocks returned to near record highs in Europe as investors bet on the European Central Bank keeping its stimulus taps full open as long as COVID remains a threat to growth.

Investors are looking to a mounting pile of cash at U.S. companies to provide support for the stock market in coming months, as executives announce plans to increase share buybacks, boost dividends or pour money back into their businesses.

South Korea's Hyundai Motor Co turned in its best quarterly profit in about six years, helped by solid demand for its high-margin sport-utility vehicles and its premium Genesis cars.

Unilever warned that surging commodity costs would squeeze its full-year operating margin, overshadowing strong second-quarter sales growth fueled by the easing of pandemic-related curbs in many of its markets.

Electric-car maker Tesla will most likely restart accepting bitcoin as payments once it conducts due diligence on the amount of renewable energy used to mine the currency, Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said at a conference.


Jill Biden is leading the U.S. diplomatic delegation to the Olympics, sending a message of support to a key Asian ally.

See our full coverage of Tokyo 2020

Quote of the day

"I don't care if you think I'm Satan reincarnated, the fact is you can't look at that television and say nothing happened on the 6th"

President Joe Biden

Biden speaks at Trump-area town hall

Video of the day

Swiss hiker defies Parkinson’s disease

Yves Auberson, who hiked more than 1,100 km across the Alps to raise awareness of the debilitating neurological disease, is gearing up for his next challenge after undergoing an operation to implant electrodes in his brain.

And finally…

How to repair our shrinking social and job networks

If your social and professional networks disintegrated in the pandemic, you are not alone.

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