Malaria Is Returning to Venezuela: What We’re Reading Today
The Daily 5 is Sharp’s essential reading list for what’s happening in the world today. Make sure to follow us on Twitter or subscribe to the Sharp Insider newsletter to stay up to date.
Here’s what’s happening today:
1. Malaria awaits the desperate in rural Venezuelan mines
“Many turn to panning for black-market gold in the watery pits of mines, where mosquitoes infect them. Once they return home to recover, the disease spreads.”
2. Why you can now quit your job to make Snapchat videos
“Web video’s rise has sparked a growing tension for media’s most established players, who must retool and compete for a new generation of viewers on an increasingly insatiable Internet. In June, a Facebook vice president called video ‘the best way to tell stories in this world’ and said that the world’s biggest social network, with 1.6 billion users, would be ‘probably all video’ within five years.”
3. Clouds of corruption swirl around Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort
“On a leafy side street off Independence Square in Kiev is an office used for years by Donald J. Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, when he consulted for Ukraine’s ruling political party. His furniture and personal items were still there as recently as May.
“And Mr. Manafort’s presence remains elsewhere here in the capital, where government investigators examining secret records have found his name, as well as companies he sought business with, as they try to untangle a corrupt network they say was used to loot Ukrainian assets and influence elections during the administration of Mr. Manafort’s main client, former President Viktor F. Yanukovych.”
+1: Republicans have “been growing more conservative and less tolerant of deviations from doctrine over the past decades, so what does it mean that a man who has freely eschewed conservative orthodoxy on policy is now the Republicans’ standard-bearer?”
4. The banana could have like, 5-10 good years left
“The global banana industry could be wiped out in just 5 to 10 years by fast-advancing fungal diseases. And that would prove devastating to millions of small-scale farmers who depend on the fruit for food, fiber, and income. Already, Sigatoka—a three-fungus disease complex—reduces banana yields by 40 percent.”
5. Too much A/C is screwing up how your body handles heat
“On a literal level, our reliance on air-conditioning is actually making the world hotter; residential cooling uses such a massive amount of energy, that AC use has climate researchers worried. But on a psychological level, it’s also making the air outside feel hotter: Like a caffeine addict guzzling his coffee, the more air-conditioning you have, the more you need it to feel good.”
