OZY Daily Dose

Former police officer Derek Chauvin was sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison for the murder of George Floyd on June 25th. “Your skin color should not define who you are,” Floyd’s brother, Philonise, told reporters shortly after the sentencing. “It should never be a weapon.” With Chauvin now in prison we ask: What are the likely battlegrounds ahead? Where are the opportunities for change? Join us on this edition of the Daily Dose as we take a look at the ideas being debated nationwide by OZY readers and guests of The Carlos Watson Show who seek to #ResetAmerica.

Prince Harry and Prince William are to reunite today to unveil a statue of their mother, Princess Diana, in London on what would have been her 60th birthday. Of course, as with any royal event, gossip is once again on everyone’s lips. The very public, ongoing feud between the two brothers has made the unveiling a must-see. The Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, plans to skip the festivities, reigniting rumors of the rift between her and Harry’s wife, Meghan Markle. All of which got me thinking: The intriguing world of royals extends far beyond England — to Africa, the Middle East and deep into history. In today’s Daily Dose, we dive into the most notorious royal feuds, uncover game-changing, badass royal ladies and highlight the best of OZY’s coverage of stately rebels and warrior women.

College athletes have completed the ultimate Hail Mary. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously affirmed that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) was violating antitrust laws by limiting the benefits schools could provide to their athletes. Then on Monday the NCAA Division I Council recommended that from tomorrow schools in certain states should be allowed to decide whether college sports stars can make money from their personal brands. What does that mean? Basically, it paves the way for college athletes, hundreds of whom are sports stars in their own right, to one day get paid. It’s a decision that will likely upend the billion-dollar collegiate athletics industry not just economically, but academically and culturally, given the way sports touch upon every sphere of American life. Want to know more? Today’s Daily Dose dissects the ruling and then sprints forward, considering the future of a post-amateur sports world for casual fans and professional athletes alike.

Sixteen months since the world came grinding to a halt amid the deadliest pandemic in a century, vaccines are allowing many — at least in the West — to finally step out of their homes once again. But for millions of people across the planet, the coming months could see them forced from their homes for good. The Biden administration has extended the federal moratorium on rental evictions, previously scheduled to cease on June 30, by a month. Worryingly for many, however, it’s likely to be the final such extension. Today’s Daily Dose lifts the veil on a looming homelessness crisis that’s staring America and many parts of the world in the face, introduces you to unheralded heroes and explores some out-of-the-box fixes.

The unfolding tragedy in Miami has laid bare just how badly infrastructure in America needs upgrading. The doomed building in Surfside, constructed in 1981, was due to be inspected before it collapsed in the early hours of last Thursday. What’s more, engineers in 2018 found “major structural damage” to the site’s pool deck in addition to cracking and spalling of columns and beams in the building’s parking lot. Now, all buildings aged 40 years and older in Miami are to be audited. At-risk infrastructure has been on the minds of U.S. politicians for some time, and last week, a deal reached by Republican and Democratic lawmakers to invest $1.2 trillion in the country’s infrastructure highlighted the acute need to invest in roads, bridges and housing nationwide. America’s not alone. Devastating fires at Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral in 2019, and at national museums in Brazil and India, have prompted questions about why we’re not better prepared to protect these national treasures. Worldwide, there are a host of culturally significant buildings and sites linking us to critical junctures in history that are at risk. Much like our broader infrastructure in many places, our architectural touchstones are falling apart, and with them, we are losing crucial links to the past. Today’s Daily Dose takes a look at what’s at stake, some of the new approaches to architecture you’re likely to see in the future and the trailblazing designers behind them. OZY will be donating to The Surfside Hardship Fund, which is in partnership with The Coral Gables Community Foundation, The Key Biscayne Community Foundation, The Miami Foundation & The Miami Heat. Will you join us? Go to supportsurfside.org to donate now.

The best songs take you on a journey beyond yourself, and the best podcasts about those songs help you understand why. This week on a music-themed edition of Wherever You Get Your Podcasts, we take a deep dive into hip-hop’s history, learn about a king’s fateful haircut, discover the lost music of Tanzania and explore the multifaceted glory that is the Dollyverse.

It’s the conspiracy theory that roiled the 2020 U.S. presidential election, inspiring claims of stolen ballots, anti-mask rallies, and the infamous January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. While the incident may have faded from the limelight since that dark winter day, recent events are coming to light that suggest QAnon beliefs will be around for the long haul. In today’s Daily Dose, we explore the spate of events that highlight its lasting power, before exploring how QAnon could affect everything from vaccine adoption and mass shootings to the California recall campaign and the cultural legitimacy of Christianity. Stay tuned to find out why, among other things, some believe Melinda Gates has, in theory, been replaced by a male clone.

When I think of TikTok, the scream factory in Monsters, Inc. comes to mind. The app is a conveyor belt of doors, opening and closing, on some strange reality. You can quickly find yourself reeling from information overload — from real estate gurus and religious evangelists, to kink lovers and fashion trendsetters. That is, dear friend, until the algorithm jumps in, deluging you in the subcultures you’ve “liked” the most — a process that feels either as exhilarating as being accepted into a clique, or as claustrophobic as hotboxing in a straightjacket. Today, with the Biden administration revoking a Trump-era ban on the popular app, we look at TikTok’s emerging subcultures and how the online world we perceive is increasingly being rewritten by the app’s algorithm.

When news broke last month that the remains of at least 215 children had been found at the largest residential school in Canada’s westernmost province, many began wondering whether the discovery was just the tip of the iceberg. South of the Canadian border, hundreds and perhaps thousands of children are believed to have died in church- and government-run residential schools in the 19th and 20th centuries. The conventional thinking among white settlers was that native people needed to be reformed, modernized and educated, and that a Christian education would put all that in place; in practice, whole cultures were wiped out. Decades on, it remains a horrifying and still-unreconciled issue for indigenous communities across the U.S. and Canada. But the forced “re-education” of indigenous communities is by no means solely a North American experience: Almost everywhere colonialists have set foot, efforts to indoctrinate local populations to the European way of living – and thinking – have been front and center. Today, we look at how these past wrongs are increasingly coming to light, the voices demanding accountability and importantly, how some countries are working to promote indigienous education and culture.

An unstoppable force and global pop icon in the late 1990s and 2000s, the trappings of fame have hit singer Britney Spears hard in the years since. Crippling anxiety combined with punishing, sordid attention thrust upon her by paparazzi and others fueled a much-publicized breakdown in 2007 and 2008. That then saw her placed in a legal conservatorship in which for more than a decade, her father Jamie controlled her financial and personal affairs, as well as her career and medical treatment. With Spears on Wednesday set to appear virtually at a court hearing discussing her conservatorship, today’s Daily Dose delves into the ins and outs of that legal concept, the prominent international cases in which women have faced similar restrictions on their autonomy and the important docs to watch to help you become better informed.