2020
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Monitor Daily Podcast

May 01, 2020
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Linda Feldmann
Washington Bureau Chief

Today we explore the racial disparities underlying the pandemic, Joe Biden’s #MeToo uproar, the definition of an “essential” business, how a Monitor writer beat COVID-19, and the films of Indian director Satyajit Ray.

First, some thoughts on how we greet each other.

For millennia, the handshake has been a gesture of peaceful intentions, perhaps even a way to ensure the other person isn’t carrying a weapon. 

In modern times, the handshake has usually stood for a simple “hello.” But it could also carry deep significance. Last weekend was the 75th anniversary of a historic World War II handshake: the moment when allied American and Soviet soldiers met on a bridge over the Elbe River – effectively cutting Germany in two and signaling the Nazis’ imminent defeat.

Sadly, the global pandemic forced the cancellation of in-person commemorations of the Elbe handshake. But that doesn’t mean the United States and Russia can’t still work together on matters of existential importance as my friend, retired Brig. Gen. Peter Zwack, wrote in The Hill newspaper. 

Extending the New START treaty, the last strategic U.S.-Russia nuclear weapons accord, is Exhibit A. The urgency of this idea was made clear last December at a U.S.-Russia forum that General Zwack and I both attended, as I wrote

There were plenty of handshakes at that meeting. Another participant, Robert Michler, a top surgeon in New York City doing his part to battle COVID-19, says he now “yearns for the days of a handshake.” Alas, that simple gesture is likely a thing of the past. But new customs will spring up. It’s the expression of goodwill that counts. 


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Patrik Jonsson/The Christian Science Monitor
Pitmaster Bobby Lewis tends the ribs and butts at Randy's BBQ on Savannah's east side on April 14, 2020. Mr. Lewis supports the mayor's aggressive enforcement of shelter-in-place rules
Martin Meissner/AP
People with bicycles meet at the clock park in Duesseldorf, Germany, at 6 p.m. on April 24, 2020.

Essay

Robin Ford-Coron/Courtesy of Peter Ford
The Monitor's global affairs correspondent, Peter Ford, stands outside the Paris hospital where he spent 10 days fighting – and beating – the coronavirus.

On Film

Janus Films/File
Smaran Ghosal as Apu in “Aparajito (The Unvanquished),” the second film in The Apu Trilogy from Indian director Satyajit Ray.

The Monitor's View

Reuters
Residents in Jeaumont, France, use vending machines to buy protective face masks and other anti-coronavirus gear.

A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

A message of love

Francois Lenoir/Reuters
Students from a closed Brussels' circus school hang on ropes attached to an abandoned bridge as a cyclist wearing a mask rides past during the lockdown imposed by the Belgian government to slow down the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) spread, Belgium April 27, 2020.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thank you for joining us. Please come back Monday when we look at the building campaign to make China pay reparations for the novel coronavirus outbreak.

More issues

2020
May
01
Friday
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