Briefly with OZY

Amid a frantic rescue effort, many feared the worst for 99 people listed as missing after half of a 12-story beachfront apartment tower collapsed in the Miami-area town of Surfside yesterday. And she betrayed the U.S. — for love.

A Royal Navy destroyer steamed within the territorial limits of Crimea yesterday, prompting Russian claims that it had fired shots and dropped bombs in the warship’s path. And tricksters get NRA’s ex-chief to address “dead” students.

Resorting to its preferred diplomatic tactic, whataboutism, China slammed Canada for historical injustice against Indigenous people after the latter called for an investigation into abuses in Xinjiang. Democrats have vowed to continue the struggle for voting rights after Republicans in the Senate blocked their ambitious bill. And find out how a schoolboy Sherlock in San Francisco found a stolen Madagascan lemur.

Democrats, including former President Barack Obama, say the historic voting rights act before the Senate today is vitally important for maintaining the country's democracy, but it looks set to be blocked by a Republican filibuster. Cambodia has clamped down on environmental activists using spurious Lèse-majesté laws. And New York? Paris? You might be surprised to know which city is actually the most expensive in the world for expats.

Ethiopians head to the polls today in elections seen as a test for President Abiy Ahmed amid a bitter conflict in northern Tigray region. U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan says preventing Iran from developing its nuclear program is a top priority for the administration and is unlikely to be changed by the election of hardliner Ebrahim Raisi as president. And a baffling online campaign urging Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to eat the Mona Lisa has gone viral.

Preliminary results show Ebrahim Raisi, the hardliner close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has won Iran’s Friday presidential election, so far with 62% of the vote. And America met climate goals in 2020 despite presidential efforts to the contrary.

Iranians don't really have much choice in today's presidential election, with many reformists unable to run, and all but one of the four candidates hardliners. Obama's legacy is safe after the Supreme Court ruled against a Republican challenge to the Affordable Care Act. And Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is in a war of words with a former friend over trans issues and cancel culture.

After an expected rival power showdown, Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin concluded yesterday’s Geneva summit with the sober language of diplomacy. And the German military is recalling 30 soldiers from Lithuania after a reported drunken Hitler birthday song.

There's been a new flare-up in violence in the Middle East, despite Israel's new coalition government, with Hamas militants sending incendiary balloons into Israel, which responded with airstrikes in the Gaza Strip. A federal judge has dealt a blow to President Biden's climate change agenda, ruling against his suspension of new oil and gas leases. And in a sign of the world reconnecting after lockdown, Peruvian villagers are rebuilding an ancient Inca bridge joining their two communities.

NATO has warned that China presents "challenges" to the international rules-based order, after similar discussions at the G-7. Reporters leave a press conference in Belarus after a detained dissident is brought out apparently "under duress." And the patriarch of the world's largest family has died in India, leaving behind 94 children.