We’ll be living with masks for years’: COVID-19 through the eyes of a pandemic expert

CNET – “Since the summer of 2019, I’ve been speaking with one of the world’s leading pandemic experts about what a global outbreak could look like. Now, as the world enters a grim new phase, he says we’re in a whole new ball game..Eric Toner has been planning for a pandemic for years. He’s briefed world leaders on outbreaks and how to best prepare entire nations for mass casualties. He’s simulated epidemics in real time and studied the world’s response to major global health emergencies like SARS and the 1918 influenza pandemic….

What Can Bonobos Teach Us About the Nature of Language? Smithsonian

Why we need sharks: the true nature of the ocean’s ‘monstrous villains’ The Guardian

Italian mafia bonds sold to global investorsFT

Fraud, Short Sellers & Media Investor Amnesia

Implications of financial market development for financial stability in emerging market economies (PDF) Bank of International Settlements

News leaders and tech platforms must safeguard journalists from digital harassment to ensure press freedom

Addressing digital harassment will remove one of the obstacles to achieving diverse media workplaces where every journalist can feel safe.

Shane Simpson, 47, had told the Wollongong District Court that he sold the weapons to unknown persons over a six-year period because the lives of his family had been threated, over the phone and through letters. 

Meet France’s New Culture Minister

“[Roselyne] Bachelot, 73, is returning to politics after eight years working as a commentator in radio and television. Prior to that, she served as the minister of ecology and sustainable development under former President Jacques Chirac, then as health minister and minister of social cohesion under President Nicolas Sarkozy, always in rightwing governments.” – The Art Newspaper

In north Michigan woods, feds raid an alleged upscale art forgery factory Detroit News. Manufacturing renaissance in the heartland!

The leveraging of America: how companies became addicted to debt FT

“San Francisco—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), in partnership with the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, today launched the largest-ever collection of searchable data on police use of surveillance technologies, created as a tool for the public to learn about facial recognition, drones, license plate readers, and other devices law enforcement agencies are acquiring to spy on our communities.  The Atlas of Surveillance database, containing several thousand data points on over 3,000 city and local police departments and sheriffs’ offices nationwide, allows citizens, journalists, and academics to review details about the technologies police are deploying, and provides a resource to check what devices and systems have been purchased locally.  Users can search for information by clicking on regions, towns, and cities, such as Minneapolis, Tampa, or Tucson, on a U.S. map. They can also easily perform text searches by typing the names of cities, counties, or states on a search page that displays text results. The Atlas also allows people to search by specific technologies, which can show how surveillance tools are spreading across the country…”