THE BIG STORY

The worst landlords

Single mom Gail Savage lost her bartending job when the shutdown began in Indianapolis on March 16. She told her landlord about the layoff, and said she was waiting on a federal stimulus check to make rent. He replied asking if she’d “stay all night” with him. “Are you asking me in a sexual way?” she eventually texted back. “Yes,” he replied.

He’s one of an alarming number of landlords sexually propositioning their cash-strapped tenants as the economy craters, Amber Jamieson reports. There’s a long history of landlords harassing tenants for sex, especially in vulnerable and low-income communities. With an extra 33 million people out of work in the last couple of months, a lot more people have become vulnerable.

“If you think about #MeToo and attention to sexual harassment and employment, that affected women of all economic classes,” said Sandra Park, a senior attorney at the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project. “This issue has always targeted low-income women particularly, but given the pandemic and widespread loss of jobs, I do wonder whether we will see more persuasive sexual harassment in housing than we have seen previously ... because it may well end up targeting women from different economic classes.”

Tommaso Boddi / Getty Images

STAYING ON TOP OF THIS

Freeing the innocent

After a long-running BuzzFeed News investigation revealed a Chicago detective has been accused of framing more than 50 people — mostly young Latino men — for murders they did not commit, prosecutors now say they will conduct a “comprehensive review” of all convictions tied to the now-retired cop. It’s a huge moment in what could prove to be one of the largest policing scandals in US history.

At least 20 people have already been exonerated in cases linked to former detective Reynaldo Guevara, but 14 are still behind bars and another 16 are free but living with criminal convictions on their records. Some men died in prison.

Nancy Adduci, the director of Cook County’s Conviction Integrity Unit, asked lawyers to submit the details of people whose convictions involved Guevara, in a letter seen by Melissa Segura, the BuzzFeed News investigative reporter who has been following this story for years. The review is part of an effort to “seek justice equitably,” Adduci wrote, and reverse “convictions that should not stand.”

Here’s Segura’s original investigation into Detective Guevara and the 51 men who say he framed them for crimes they did not commit.

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SNAPSHOTS

A government scientist turned whistleblower warned Congress the US could experience its “darkest winter in modern history.” Virologist Dr. Rick Bright testified that the “window of opportunity is closing” to beat the coronavirus.

Within hours of the Wisconsin Supreme Court striking down the state’s lockdown order on Wednesday, bars were flooded with customers. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers called it a “sad occasion for the state.”

Sen. Richard Burr has stepped down as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The North Carolina Republican is being investigated by the FBI over stock trades he made in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.

What do three days of peace and love in 1969 have to do with the coronavirus? Here’s the story behind a bizarre Woodstock meme that’s blowing up on Facebook.

Woodstock, 1969 (via AP)

THIS GUY SUCKS

Seriously.

New York City officials called a TikTok star with over 3.3 million followers “despicable” yesterday, after he posted videos of a “prank” he played on essential workers riding the subway recently.

Josh Popkin posted two videos showing him getting onto a busy subway car, filling a giant plastic tub with cereal and milk, and then throwing it on the floor of the carriage, sending the masked commuters around him scrambling — and leaving an enormous mess for someone else to clean up.

This wasn’t his first so-called prank on essential workers during the pandemic, Emmanuel Felton reports. He’s also posted videos of himself messing with a UPS delivery worker, a door attendant, and the cashier at a bodega. He’s truly the worst; yesterday Dulcedo Management, the talent agency that represented him, told BuzzFeed News they’re no longer working with him and that his recent pranks are not the “positivity needed during these times.”

Josh Popkin, who sucks. (via TikTok)

WEEKEND ESCAPISM

Read about some other stuff this weekend, as a treat

Remember back when there was other stuff going on? Remember when you could kick back and think about anything else apart from...all this? Anyhow, just in case you feel like temporarily escaping to another time and place at some point in the coming days, here’s a few lovely feature articles from the Before Times, back when there were things in the world other than the coronavirus.

Why Paris Hilton Disappeared — Pier Dominguez on the fate of one of the most visible celebrities of the 2000s, who stopped being a thing in the social media era.

“Fixer Upper” Is Over, But Waco’s Transformation Is Just Beginning — Anne Helen Petersen on the sleepy Texas town that Chip and Joanna Gaines turned into a national tourist destination.

How "Armageddon" Became The Ultimate Disaster Movie (In More Ways Than One) — Sandi Rankaduwa on the apocalypse movie that reviewers couldn’t stand when it came out 20 years ago, and is now a classic.

🎵 'Cause even when I dream of you / The sweetest dream will never do, 🎵

Tom