| | | A Bahamas resident rests amid the destruction of Great Abaco Island Friday. Source: Getty |
| IMPORTANT | 01 | The number of deaths in the Bahamas from Hurricane Dorian’s brutal visit earlier this week has risen to 43, with many more bodies expected to be removed from the wreckage of the chain’s northern islands. While a greatly weakened storm made landfall and flooded North Carolina’s Outer Banks Friday, its continental impact lingers over Alabama. That’s where President Donald Trump said Sunday it would hit, only to be corrected by a National Weather Service tweet out of Birmingham. On Friday the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration backed the president, drawing repudiation from a federal weather employee group. Where is the storm now? Racing north, it’s lashing coastal Massachusetts on its way to Canada’s Maritime provinces. | |
| 02 | As special elections go, Tuesday’s in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District should be extraordinary. The original Republican contender has withdrawn — after appearing to win by more than 900 votes in November — in part because of his own son’s testimony about illegal absentee ballot handling. Democrat Dan McCready, who started running 27 months ago, has another chance, polling neck and neck with a new Republican nominee, State Sen. Dan Bishop. How important is the race? It’s attracted $15 million in contributions, and President Donald Trump will be holding a rally in support of Bishop in neighboring Fayetteville Monday night. Let OZY introduce you to the Democrats’ dangerous digital strategist. | |
| 03 | Boris Johnson’s honeymoon period as British prime minister was fated to be a short one, and this week saw its abrupt conclusion. Parliament on Friday enacted a law prohibiting a “no-deal” Brexit that served as Johnson’s primary leverage to get a more favorable exit deal from the EU. Opposition leaders are also reportedly united in preventing a snap election sought by the prime minister, who intends to prorogue (i.e., suspend Parliament to limit its debate time) until mid-October. What’s next? Under the bill passed by the House of Lords yesterday, Johnson will have to ask Brussels for a Brexit deadline extension if he can’t get a deal approved by Oct. 19. | |
| 04 | Since the end of World War II — which began 80 years ago this week — Europe has remained largely at peace. But the rise of nationalism has threatened the liberal democratic ideal that seemed embedded in the European psyche. Practically nonexistent in Hungary, it’s eroding in both Poland and Italy. What’s changed? The horrors of WWII, from the blitzkrieg to the Holocaust, are now a lifetime in the past, meaning there are hardly any witnesses left to impart the conflict’s lessons firsthand. Don’t miss this OZY Flashback recalling a wedding disrupted by Poland’s occupation. | |
| 05 | Iran says it is using advanced centrifuges to refine uranium in another step prohibited under its 2015 nuclear deal, which U.S. President Trump pulled out of. India lost contact with its unmanned Vikram lander Friday when it was 1.3 miles from landing on the Moon’s surface. And in Washington, the Justice Department is probing possible antitrust violations in an emissions-limiting deal between major automakers and California that embarrassed the president. In the week ahead: Today Serena Williams will attempt to match the Grand Slam title record in her U.S. Open final match against Canadian teenager Bianca Andreescu in New York, where the men’s final takes place Sunday. On Tuesday, 30 years after Margaret Atwood’s original The Handmaid’s Tale novel was published, her sequel, The Testaments, will be officially released after Amazon mistakenly shipped copies this week. And on Wednesday, the 18th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Houston will host the third Democratic presidential debate. OZY is hiring! We’re looking for an analytical and globally minded tech reporter to sniff out today’s most important stories in science, technology and health. Check out our jobs page and read the description here. |
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| | INTRIGUING | 01 | A uniquely progressive psychiatric treatment may have originated with a seventh-century Christian saint. That’s how writer Anne Thériault, who’s been hospitalized with depression, sees the work being done in Geel, Belgium. There, townspeople honor St. Dymphna — beheaded, the story goes, by her psychotic Irish monarch father for refusing to marry him — by caring for the mentally ill. How do they do that? Just as Dymphna is said to have done after escaping to Geel, they bring patients, called “boarders,” into their homes and treat them as family members in a practice that’s intrigued experts for centuries. Read OZY’s look at whether in-home magnetic stimulation can treat depression. | |
| 02 | It’s OK to beg. That’s one of the messages Jaya Sharma is imparting to fellow Indians who are into BDSM. Sharma’s mission, OZY reports, is to take the fear out of submission and domination and let aficionados trade their psychological restraints for the literal kind. In a country where garden-variety sex education is taboo, it’s hard enough to use the word “kink,” let alone find others who share such interests. What is she doing to help? Sharma’s Kinky Collective operates in four major cities, particularly in Delhi, offering workshops to dispel BDSM myths and teach kinksters how to play safely. | |
| 03 | Among Norway’s stunning waterways and quiet forests, wandering the countryside has been a way of life for centuries. Until, that is, Instagram and mass tourism happened. Hordes of visitors are eroding extra lanes for trails, among other damage, prompting policymakers, environmentalists and tourism operators to introduce initiatives to make the industry more sustainable and in line with the oil-producing country’s carbon neutrality goal. How is Norway minimizing the impact? This year alone, it’s spending $37 million to make tourism less damaging, including $1.2 million to fortify trails, and other solutions, from new garbage bins to improved public transport. Read OZY’s Special Briefing on the cutting edge of climate change science. | |
| 04 | Practice, practice, practice isn’t how you get to Carnegie Hall. That’s the conclusion of dedicated, but ultimately failed violinist and now cultural critic Kate Wagner. For musicians without trust funds and the resources to attend top conservatories, there’s an obligation to student teach without pay while working secret side gigs to survive school. A few succeed, only to have little chance of making a living. Where does this lead? Unless they’re hired by embattled union-represented orchestras, musicians from less-than-privileged backgrounds end up working as freelancers and underpaid adjunct faculty members, overwhelmed with debt. | |
| 05 | One could argue that the 2016 and 2018 NCAA champions are blessed. While it’s normal for players and coaches to mix faith and football, at the South Carolina university, Christianity is everything to coach Dabo Swinney. From recruitment interviews to staffing choices to the weekly “Church Day,” the gospel of Christ radiates through the program. Players and their parents cite that atmosphere as a selling point. Is there a problem with that? Since Clemson is a public institution, critics charge that Swinney’s fervor violates the First Amendment’s separation of church and state, but so far, no player has mounted a legal challenge. OZY looks back at how integration changed the game. | |
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