Country singer, songwriter, and musician Charlie Daniels died Monday after suffering a stroke. He was 83.
Daniels had long been a powerhouse in country music, getting his start by co-writing the Elvis Presley song It Hurt Me in 1964. His guitar, fiddle, and banjo skills landed him on other major artists' records around that time. Daniels launched his own singing career in 1971 with a self-titled debut album, and found his name-maker in 1979 with the fast-fiddling No. 1 hit The Devil Went Down to Georgia.
Daniels and his self-titled band remained active for decades and toured the U.S. multiple times. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2016.
Daniels spent his last days as he did every other: Tweeting "Benghazi ain't going away!" for the umpteenth time in a row. Kathryn Krawczyk
Hong Kong's new national security bill alone has many residents and much of the international community concerned that China is severely limiting the city's freedoms, but experts think the law's new implementations rules are what's really alarming.
Under new regulations settled Monday during the first meeting of Hong Kong's Committee for Safeguarding National Security, police will, in "exceptional circumstances," be able to enter premises without a warrant, order internet firms to remove content — although several tech giants like Facebook and Twitter said they've suspended processing requests for user data from Hong Kong law enforcement — and demand information from political groups operating outside the city, The South China Morning Post reports.
"The new rules are scary, as they grant power to the police force that are normally guided by the judiciary," said Anson Wong Yu-yat, a practicing barrister. "For example, in emergency and special circumstances police do not need a warrant under one rule, but it never explains what it means by special circumstances."
Alan Wong Hok-ming, a solicitor, also noted that even if these rules do provide for some limits on police power, there's nothing stopping from the government from expanding the rulebook to bypass "scrutiny, checks, and balances by other institutions like the Legislative Council." Read more at The South China Morning Post. Tim O'Donnell
Colin Kaepernick and Disney are getting down to business.
Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback who while in the NFL kneeled during the national anthem in protest of police brutality and racial injustice, has signed a first-look deal with The Walt Disney Company, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The partnership between Disney and Kaepernick's Ra Vision Media will "focus on telling scripted and unscripted stories that explore race, social injustice, and the quest for equity," a statement said, and the first project will be a documentary series about Kaepernick being produced by ESPN Films.
In the series, Kaepernick will "tell his story from his perspective," the announcement said, and it will make use of "extensive new interviews and a vast never-before-seen archive that documents his last five years."
This news comes after Netflix last week announced Ava DuVernay is working on a limited series about Kaepernick's high school years, which Kaepernick will himself narrate. Kaepernick on Monday called his partnership with Disney "historic," adding that he looks forward "to sharing the docuseries on my life story, in addition to many other culturally impactful projects we are developing.” Brendan Morrow
Harvard University announced Monday it will only let 40 percent of its undergraduate students live on its Cambridge, Massachusetts, campus when the 2020-21 school year begins. But no matter where those students are learning from, they'll be taking all of their classes completely online to stem a resurgence of COVID-19.
Harvard will let first-year students live on campus in the fall so they can acclimate to college life, and will also prioritize housing for "those who cannot learn successfully in their current home environment," the school announced. Those students will still be encouraged to avoid socializing in person with other students, and will be subject to "virus testing every three days, face-masking, social distancing, and other measures," Harvard continued. In the spring of 2021, first-year students will largely head home and Harvard will let seniors return to campus instead, "unless public health conditions improve or worsen," Harvard said.
Harvard also announced that its annual tuition of $49,653 wouldn't be lowered despite the learning change, and didn't say if there would be a discount from the $72,391 cost of tuition, room, board, and fees combined.
Harvard says it came to its decision by looking at what other Ivy league schools and Northeast colleges have planned and took into consideration how hard the virus hit the dense area of greater Boston early on in the pandemic. Read Harvard's whole announcement here. Kathryn Krawczyk
A hilarious documentary series following the launch of Quibi seems inevitable, but until then, a new report has arrived to provide some juicy details.
Vulture on Monday published a detailed report on Quibi, the mobile-centered streaming service that divides its programming into small chunks and had a disappointing launch earlier this year. It includes some interviews with the folks in charge, including CEO Meg Whitman — who despite being the head of a streaming platform apparently doesn't even like TV that much.
"I'm not sure I'd classify myself as an entertainment enthusiast," Whitman said when asked what she's watching on TV. Asked if she has any favorite shows, she responded, "Grant. On the History Channel. It's about President Grant."
Among the other standout details from the article include that staffers at Quibi agreed with most of the American public that the name was "cringey" and wanted to change it and that internal research showed people who watched the company's expensive TV ads came away with no real understanding of what Quibi even is.
"In market research following its Oscars and Super Bowl ads, 70 percent of respondents said they thought Quibi was a food-delivery service," Vulture reports.
There's also the revelation that Gal Gadot reportedly once came to Quibi and "delivered an impassioned speech about wanting to elevate the voices of girls and women," only for founder Jeffrey Katzenberg to wonder if maybe she could "become the new Jane Fonda and do a workout series for Quibi." A source told Vulture, "Apparently, her face fell."
Whitman didn't sound totally confident in the interview that consumers will largely stick with Quibi following the end of their 90-day free trial, saying, "We don't know quite what to expect." For his part, Katzenberg, presumably channeling his inner this-is-fine dog, told Vulture, "I would say things are going really well." Brendan Morrow
If you've followed coronavirus research developments since the pandemic began, you're probably aware there have been quite a few clinical trials and studies aimed at finding a treatment or prevention for COVID-19. In fact, Stat News reports there have been 1,200 designed since January, which is a remarkable number in such a short amount of time. The problem is a lot of them are fatally flawed, a new analysis conducted by Stat found.
Robert Califf, the head of clinical policy and strategy at Verily Life Sciences and Google Health who previously served as commissioner for the Food and Drug Administration, said the analysis shows many studies are too small to answer questions (39 percent are enrolling or plan to enroll fewer than 100 patients), lack real control groups, and emphasized a few potential treatments (one out of every six focused on the President Trump-favored malaria drugs, hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine) too frequently. "If the goal was to optimize the likelihood of figuring out the best treatment options, the system is off course," he told Stat.
Martin Landray, a professor of medicine at Oxford University and a member of one of the more successful studies known as RECOVERY, said "it's a huge amount of wasted effort and wasted energy." To correct that, Landray and other experts have called for more "coordination and collaboration" across the globe. Read more at Stat News. Tim O'Donnell