being a TA helping the class gain confidence, learn from their mistakes, build bonds and help educational progress:

being a TA that has no choice in having to do whatever the fuck an off timetable child wants to do, who's guardian said "good luck" as soon as they drop them off in a violent mood

Headlines

States mandate masks, begin to shut down again as coronavirus cases soar and hospitalizations rise (Washington Post) The pandemic map of the United States burned bright red Monday, with the number of new coronavirus infections during the first six days of July nearing 300,000 as more states and cities moved to reimpose shutdown orders. After an Independence Day weekend that attracted large crowds to fireworks displays and produced scenes of Americans drinking and partying without masks, health officials warned of hospitals running out of space and infection spreading rampantly. The United States is “still knee deep in the first wave” of the pandemic, Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Monday.

Colleges Plan to Reopen Campuses, but for Just Some Students at a Time (NYT) With the coronavirus still raging and the fall semester approaching, colleges and universities are telling large segments of their student populations to stay home. Those who are allowed on campus, they say, will be living in a world where parties are banned, where everyone is frequently tested for the coronavirus and—perhaps most draconian of all—where students attend many if not all their courses remotely, from their dorm rooms. In order to achieve social distancing, many colleges are saying they will allow only 40 to 60 percent of their students to return to campus and live in the college residence halls at any one time, often divided by class year. Stanford has said freshmen and sophomores will be on campus when classes start in the fall, while juniors and seniors study remotely from home. Harvard announced on Monday that it will mainly be first-year students and some students in special circumstances who will be there in the fall; in the spring, freshmen will leave and it will be seniors’ turn. At the same time, very few colleges are offering tuition discounts, even for those students being forced to take classes from home. Professors, students and parents all seem to be conflicted over how these plans will work out.

ICE threatens deportation of foreign students (Foreign Policy) The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency announced that foreign students studying at U.S. colleges and universities will face deportation if their institution moves to online classes and they remain in the country. The decision gives students less than two months to either transfer to a university offering in-person tuition or leave the country entirely. Peter McPherson, the president of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) whose members include the University of California system along with roughly 200 other universities, called the policy “incredibly unfair, harmful, and unworkable.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, whose state of Massachusetts is home to some of the country’s top universities, has called on ICE and its parent agency the Department of Homeland Security to drop the policy, calling it “senseless, cruel, and xenophobic.”

Singles are having kids with strangers as part of the co-parenting trend (NY Post) They’re skipping love and marriage and going straight to the part about a baby in a carriage. The latest child-rearing fad—co-parenting—is on the rise as singles desperate to have kids link up to raise children together—romance be damned. The concept is simple: Two strangers who want kids, but don’t have partners, team up to have and raise a child together. There’s even a TV show, Fox’s “Labor of Love,” in which suitors compete to be co-parent to a former “The Bachelor” contestant. The unusual arrangement is drawing so much interest, there’s now a slew of co-parenting websites. Much like dating sites, users set up profiles with photos that detail their interests, beliefs and parenting styles in order to find their perfect co-parenting match. The owner of one site said his service has attracted more than 30,000 users. And the trend is picking up momentum. Lockdown has only intensified singles’ baby-raising dreams. “Modamily web traffic and app downloads have doubled since the pandemic,” said Ivan Fatovic. “People have been home and thinking about life decisions like having children and starting a family, and coming to us to explore all [the] ways to make that possible.”

As the Virus Surged, Florida Partied (NYT) Miami’s flashy nightclubs closed in March, but the parties have raged on in the waterfront manse tucked in the lush residential neighborhood of Belle Meade Island. Revelers arrive in sports cars and ride-shares several nights a week, say neighbors who have spied professional bouncers at the door and bought earplugs to try to sleep through the thumping dance beats. They are the sort of parties—drawing throngs of maskless strangers to rave until sunrise—that local health officials say have been a notable contributing factor to the soaring number of coronavirus cases in Florida, one of the most troubling infection spots in the country. The quest to end parties and other social gatherings has gained new urgency because of the exploding coronavirus in Florida, which reported more than 10,000 new cases on Sunday. The state’s contact tracers, already overwhelmed by the surging number of new cases, have found it especially difficult to track how the virus jumped from one party guest to the next because some infected people refused to divulge whom they went out with or had over to their house.

Protective gear for medical workers begins to run low again (AP) The personal protective gear that was in dangerously short supply during the early weeks of the coronavirus crisis in the U.S. is running low again as the virus resumes its rapid spread and the number of hospitalized patients climbs. A national nursing union is concerned that gear has to be reused. A doctors association warns that physicians’ offices are closed because they cannot get masks and other supplies. “We’re five months into this and there are still shortages of gowns, hair covers, shoe covers, masks, N95 masks,” said Deborah Burger, president of National Nurses United, who cited results from a survey of the union’s members. “They’re being doled out, and we’re still being told to reuse them.” In general, supplies of protective gear are more robust now, and many states and major hospital chains say they are in better shape. But medical professionals and some lawmakers have cast doubt on those improvements as shortages begin to reappear.

Brazil’s President Bolsonaro tests positive for COVID-19 (AP) Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro said Tuesday he has tested positive for COVID-19. Bolsonaro confirmed the test results while wearing a mask and speaking to reporters in capital Brasilia. “I’m well, normal. I even want to take a walk around here, but I can’t due to medical recommendations,” Bolsonaro said. “I thought I had it before, given my very dynamic activity. I’m president and on the combat lines. I like to be in the middle of the people.” The 65-year-old populist has often appeared in public to shake hands with supporters and mingle with crowds, at times without a mask. He has said that his history as an athlete would protect him from the virus, and that it would be nothing more than a “little flu” were he to contract it.

Virus Revives Italy’s Age-Old Shadow Safety Net: The Pawnshop (NYT) The economic repercussions of Italy’s lockdown to contain the coronavirus nearly wiped Anita Paris out. Her son, a car mechanic whom she depended on for financial support, couldn’t work. Her small pension didn’t suffice. The welfare checks she had hoped would pour in from the government didn’t materialize. And so Ms. Paris, a 75-year-old widow, turned to a shadow safety net that Italians have relied on for centuries, through plagues and sieges, wars and downturns. She rummaged through her home for “rings, necklaces, bracelets, everything I had around” and turned to the pawnshops that constitute an official, if anachronistic, part of the Italian banking system. Anxiety is palpable among Italians on pawnshop lines around the country. They worry that their short-term job contracts will run out, that customers will not fill their stores, that American tourists will not rent their rooms. But the managers of the collateral loan sector—the institutional name for pawnshops—aren’t complaining. Activity increased from 20 to 30 percent immediately after the lockdown, as clients wanted to make sure they met their interest payments but also sought new loans. And with emergency benefits about to wind down, they expect business to surge. In the United States, pawnshops are associated with bulletproof glass partitions, “Guns, Gold and Cash” lawn signs and reality show spinoffs (“Hardcore Pawn”). In Italy, they have been part of the banking system for centuries.

Teachers face threats, books are banned as China pushes party line in Hong Kong schools (Washington Post) High school teacher Dom Chan had an odd request from two superiors while developing next year’s Chinese history syllabus: remove passages from the philosopher Su Xun, known for 11th-century essays on wars and military reforms. “They told me, ‘You need to scan the textbook carefully,’” as Su’s writings could “incite violence in students or make them think revolution is good,” said Chan. As China’s Communist Party dismantles Hong Kong’s freedoms, teachers are facing pressure to toe Beijing’s line. Schools are emerging as ideological battlegrounds as officials seek to transform freethinking students into patriots loyal to the motherland through punishment, coercion, surveillance and propaganda-style education. A culture of self-censorship and government control that was already growing in schools intensified recently as Beijing introduced a security law aimed at eliminating dissent, according to nearly a dozen teachers and students who spoke to The Washington Post. The law, published June 30, compels Hong Kong’s government to “promote national security education” and pinpoints campuses for “supervision and regulation.” This week, education authorities told schools to review their library collections and remove books that could violate the law.

Japan warns of more rain to come (Foreign Policy) Japanese authorities warned of continuing heavy rains and flooding risks on the southwestern island of Kyushu—which includes the prefectures of Nagasaki, Saga, and Fukuoka—as the death toll from floods in the area has risen to at least 50. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the rains are expected to last in the region until July 9.

Jerusalem offers a grim model for a post-annexation future (AP) It’s hard to say what exactly will change in the West Bank if Israel follows through on its plans to annex parts of the occupied territory, but east Jerusalem, which was annexed more than a half-century ago, may provide some answers. Israeli leaders paint Jerusalem as a model of coexistence, the “unified, eternal” capital of the Jewish people, where minorities have equal rights. But Palestinian residents face widespread discrimination, most lack citizenship and many live in fear of being forced out. Rights groups say that in some aspects, Palestinians in east Jerusalem have even fewer legal protections than those in the West Bank, where it’s possible to appeal to international laws governing the treatment of civilians in occupied territory. They point to Israel’s Absentee Property Law of 1950, which allows the state to take control of any property whose owner lives in an “enemy state” and was used to confiscate the lands and homes of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled or were forced out during the war surrounding Israel’s creation in 1948. Rights groups say that in recent decades, authorities have abused the law to seize homes in sensitive parts of Jerusalem, evicting Palestinian residents and paving the way for settlers to move in.

Laid Off and Locked Up: Virus Traps Domestic Workers in Arab States (NYT) Families in many Arab countries rely on millions of low-paid workers from Asia and Africa to drive their cars, clean their homes and care for their children and elderly relatives under conditions that rights groups have long said allow exploitation and abuse. Now, the pandemic and associated economic downturns have exacerbated these dangers. Many families will not let their housekeepers leave the house, fearing they will bring back the virus, while requiring them to work more since entire families are staying home, workers’ advocates say. Other workers have been laid off, deprived of wages and left stranded far from home with nowhere to turn for help. In Lebanon, employers have deposited scores of Ethiopian women in front of their country’s consulate in Beirut because they could no longer pay them as the economy imploded. Persian Gulf countries alone had nearly four million domestic laborers in 2016, more than half of them women, according to a study for the Abu Dhabi Dialogue, which focuses on migrant labor in the region. Experts say the real number has risen since and is probably much higher.