Researched by: Aarthi Ramnath, Anannya Parekh, Aakriti Anand & Raghav Bikhchandani
Can Kamala win? Part two
The TLDR: In part one, we laid out Kamala Harris’ backstory—and where she stands in the presidential race. In part two, we will look at the Big Qs that will determine Harris’ fate. Is she black enough? Is she American enough? Is she likeable enough? Also: How the eff is Donald winning?
You can read part two here.
Olympics 2024 update: Novak slaughters Nadal
Two all-time legends of men’s tennis—Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal—faced off at the Games. They each have won an Olympic medal—and were playing each other for the 60th time. The expected battle of champions sadly turned out to be a wipeout. Nadal showed his age and lack of practice—losing in straight sets 6-1, 6-4.
Later he said: “I do not have the legs of 15 years ago. So without the ball quality and the legs of 15 years ago, you're not going to create problems for the best in history, right?” Happily, Rafa has one more shot at a medal—in men’s doubles alongside Carlos Alcaraz. You can see them exchange a bro hug at the end. Indian Express has more on Paris’ love for Nadal. (The Guardian)
Moving on to India: It’s another mixed bag, with some near-miss heartbreak for some and small steps of progress for others. More importantly, our medal tally remains at one.
- In archery, our men’s team entered as the third seed but were knocked out 6-2 by eventual bronze medallists Turkey in the quarter finals.
- In badminton, Lakshya Sen beat Belgium’s Julien Carraggi to remain in the hunt for a round of 16 spot—while Tanisha Crasto and Ashwini Ponnappa are staring at elimination from women’s doubles after two straight losses. Chirag Shetty and Satswiksairaj Rankireddy have booked their men’s doubles quarterfinals spot.
- In hockey, our men’s team stuttered to a 1-1 draw against Argentina—a last-gasp equaliser from captain Harmanpreet Singh spared Indian blushes, with three group stage matches to go.
- In shooting, Arjun Babuta and Ramita Jindal were so close, yet so far—they finished fourth and seventh in their respective 10-metre air rifle finals.
- In table tennis, Manika Batra stormed into the women’s singles round of 16 after whitewashing home crowd favourite Prithika Pavade 4-0.
For a useful schedule on India-specific events, check out the Olympics website.
Seine is out! The $1.4 billion clean up of the river proved to be in vain. Heavy rain has raised pollution levels—and made it unusable. It can’t be used for training—or events. (Reuters)
Activists act up: According to authorities, supposed far-left activists attacked rail lines in the lead up to the Games. Also targeted: France’s telecoms networks—which were cut late July. (CBS News)
Maduro wins in Venezuela
Nicolás Maduro has been re-elected as president in a suspect election—shadowed by allegations of rigging. He claims to have won 51% of the vote—but is known for inventing election results. For example: fudging fake voter turnout numbers in 2017. The Opposition—led by a former diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia—isn’t buying it either:
“We won and the whole world knows it,” the country’s most popular opposition leader, María Corina Machado, told reporters in Caracas, the capital, early Monday. She called the declared result “impossible,” given information her team had collected about turnout.
New Yorker has a good profile on Maduro—who is a protege of left-wing former prez Hugo Chavez. (BBC News)
Meanwhile, in the US: Elon Musk did his bit for democracy by sharing an AI-altered campaign vid of Kamala Harris. To be fair, we don’t think anyone could mistake it for the real thing. (Quartz)
Prashant Kishor’s gotta new party
The campaign guru has cosied up to almost every major party—from Trinamool to the JD(U). But in 2021, he publicly retired from the consulting business—and channelled his inner Rahul—i.e he went on a yatra. Inevitably, Kishor has now announced the founding of his own party: Jan Suraaj—which will take on Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) in the 2025 state elections. Kishor plans to field 75 candidates from the Extremely Backward Classes (EBC)—which directly takes aim at Nitish’s base. If you don’t know who this guy is, check our Big Story on his colourful political career. (Mint)
An accurate blood test for Alzheimer’s
A new JAMA study revealed a new blood test that can correctly diagnose Alzheimer’s 90% of the time. The blood test specifically measures the buildup of a protein called tau–which is responsible for the formation of plaques in the brain. In comparison, PET scans or spinal taps have a 73% accuracy—while cognitive tests conducted by GPs are correct 61% of the time. FYI: Plaques—or patches of abnormal tissue—cause Alzheimer’s by blocking communication between neurons. We did a very good two-part series on Alzheimers. Part one explains the disease—while part two has a new ‘virus’ theory of its cause. (New York Times, paywall, CNN)
In other dementia-related news: A UK study has found that the latest shingles vaccine—Shingrix—is linked with 17% of a lower risk of dementia. It could also delay the onset of symptoms of dementia by six months. Gizmodo has more nerdy details.
(No) Sex can be the death of you
According to a new study, people who have sex less than 52 times a year—or once a week—are at a higher risk of dying early. The risk is 70% higher for women—and 2X higher for men with depression. The reasons for the link are still speculative:
These findings can only show a correlation between sex and living longer, not a clear causal relationship. But they do suggest that a good sex life is key to staying healthy in general. Aside from the mental health benefits, the very act of sex might be good for the body. The authors note that “sexual activity is important for overall cardiovascular health possibly due to reduction of heart rate variability and blood flow increase.”
Key point to note: Only one-third of the 15,000 people surveyed by the study said they had sex every week. The average is closer to once a month. So there’s that. (Gizmodo)
Disappearing vultures are killing Indians
The context: Vultures are important for scavenging carcasses. But our 50 million population dropped to 0.1% by 2004-05—due to a painkiller called diclofenac—used to treat cattle. The birds would eat these carcasses and die of kidney failure. While the drug has been banned, the numbers have been slow to recover.
What happened now: A new peer-reviewed study has found that death rates are higher by 4% in the districts when vultures disappear. This means there were 100,000 additional deaths every year between 2000 and 2005. Here’s why:
[W]ithout vultures, the stray dog population increased, bringing rabies to humans... Unlike vultures, dogs were ineffective at cleaning rotting remains, leading to bacteria and pathogens spreading into drinking water through runoff and poor disposal methods. Faecal bacteria in the water more than doubled.
Point to note: This resulted in more than $69 billion per year in “mortality damages” for the country—described as “the present value of future earnings lost by people who die prematurely”. BBC News has more.
The great European olive oil fraud
The adulteration and mislabelling of olive oil bottles in the EU hit a record high in the first quarter of 2024. This includes oils contaminated with “pesticides, mineral oils and one case where glass fragments.” The other scam is, of course, claiming low quality oil is ‘extra virgin’. Most of the cases reported were from Italy—followed by Spain and Greece.
Why this matters: The global production of olive oil has decreased by 27% due to climate change—lower than the estimated demand of 2.6 million tonnes. As a result, the price has already doubled since 2018. Fake olive oil is now a very profitable business. (The Guardian)
Is Ola a data copycat?
The context: On July 6, Ola founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal unveiled an in-house version of Google Maps—called Ola Maps. The move apparently saved the company Rs 100 crore (1 billion) a year.
What happened now: MapMyIndia has accused Ola Electric of ripping off its data. The legal notice says:
You have duplicated our client’s API (application programming interface) and SDKs (software development kits) from proprietary sources belonging to our client to build OLA Maps. It is firmly stated that our client’s exclusive data has been copied/derived by you to further your illegal motive and for your unjust commercial gains.
The damning bit: Ola used to licence MapMyIndia’s data. That agreement specifically contained a clause banning Ola from reverse-engineering or “co-mingling” the information. Ofc, Ola is denying all accusations. Morning Context (paywalled) and Business Today have good pieces on the declining rep of Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal. (Forbes India)
what caught our eye
business & tech
- Bira is running out of money—which is why its venue Taproom is not paying indie artists on time. Sadly, the story is paywalled in Mint.
- A one-of-a-kind $4 million Wu-Tang Clan album—set for release in 2103—is in the midst of a legal battle involving its shady former owner: Martin Shkreli—who wants to make copies.
- The US Justice Department says TikTok collected user views on issues like abortion and gun control.
- Germans are turning to plug-and-play solar panels—which can be installed on your balcony—and plugged into a socket.
- The Japanese industry is in the middle of a mega-consolidation phase: Mitsubishi Motors will now join an alliance between Honda and Nissan—which will be pitted against the only other major auto company: Toyota.
- Google experienced a password ‘outage’—when Chrome users could not save or find their credentials last week.
sports & entertainment
- Apple TV+ may soon introduce ads—on top of charging a bomb? Really now.
- The Barbie movie has “spurred interest in gynaecology” in the US—or at least increased searches on the subject by 51%.
- Belal Muhammad is now the first fighter of Palestinian origin to win a UFC title.
- We now know the cause of Sinead O’Connor’s death: pulmonary disease and asthma.
as for the rest
- Cambridge Dictionary has embraced 3,200 new words—including ‘the ick’, ‘boop’ and the unintentionally ironic ‘IYKYK’. Which, you know, stands for “if you know you know”.
- US Prez Joe Biden wants term limits for the Supreme Court—and an ethics code. He will, of course, get neither.
five things to see
One: Rahul Gandhi is on a roll in Parliament—whipping filmi lines match the dramatic prose of Modi-ji. The latest: the “desh ka halwa” aka the union budget. Nirmala Sitharaman made the mistake of laughing—as you can see in the video below. (Times of India)
Two: Rhode Island is experiencing a dragonfly apocalypse—that is far scarier than any Hitchcock flick. FYI: This is actually ‘normal’. See the vid below. (Storyful via Yahoo News)
Three: Kanwariyas are on a tear again in Delhi. Enuf said. Watch the unhappy fate of a car that had the temerity to be in their way. (The Wire)
Four: Scientists have discovered an older video of chimpanzees saying “Mama”. New York Times has more on what this means for the evolution of speech.
Five: DC fans, brace yourselves for a prosthetics-heavy Colin Farrell—starring as The Penguin in an eight-episode HBO Max series. The trailer for the show—directed by Matt Reeves—was unveiled over the weekend at San Diego Comic Con. ‘The Penguin’ will stream from September 19. (Variety)
feel good place
One: Tanzanian shout-out for Palestine—politics with style!
Two: Disney’s next hero: The Ant King. (See more of Andrey Pavlov fab ant photos here.)
Three: Mama & baby: Manatee edition.
Splainer is making changes
We ran a two-part series (Part 1 and Part 2) on the dismal state of the news industry—and how minnows like splainer are finding novel strategies to survive. Starting last week, we put some of those new ideas to work:
- The first big change is that we will drop most of our sections in a single edition on Monday: Big Story, the quiz, good reads and curious facts. Much of this used to be spread across the week.
- Headlines That Matter will be sent in a separate email from here on out—Monday through Friday—so you can read it in your inbox or on the app/site.
- Please note: you will get two email notifications on Monday—the big story and headlines editions. It’s annoying but it only happens on that day. A tech fix requires moving way too much furniture on the back end.
- For the rest of the week, you will only receive the headlines edition. As you can see, we have a new, expanded format to make sure you stay updated through the week:)
Be sure to send questions, complaints and advice to me at lakshmi@splainer.in. Always happy to hear from you.
