As new COVID-19 variants emerge, health authorities around the world are racing to inoculate people, while facing often-disjointed rollouts and limited supplies of shots. As part of The World's regular series of conversations on the pandemic with Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and as a special episode in our podcast feed, reporter Elana Gordon moderated a discussion with a panel of experts on where we are now in the global coronavirus crisis.

Listen and watch more of the Coronavirus Conversations series here: https://www.theworld.org/coronavirus-conversations

The Apple Daily, Hong Kong’s biggest pro-democracy newspaper, is publishing its final issue. The move comes a week after authorities froze the outlet’s bank accounts, raided its offices and arrested top editors. And, Hambali, an Indonesian pegged as al-Qaeda’s mastermind in Southeast Asia, was accused of plotting the “second wave” of 9/11 attacks. Now, after languishing at Guantanamo, Hambali will get his day in court in Washington, DC, this summer. Also, a heat wave in Russia has people heading to Siberia to play in the permafrost and cool down.

UEFA has declined the Munich city council’s request to light up its stadium in rainbow colors for Germany’s final game against Hungary this week. Mayor Dieter Reiter made the request to protest an anti-LGBTQ law recently passed in Hungary. And over 800 members of Indigenous tribes from across Brazil are camped in the capital, Brasilia, to protest what they say are attacks on their rights and land. Also, negotiations between Saudi Arabia and the Houthi rebel movement in Yemen are heating up. Saudi Arabia may be looking to exit the civil war that has led to a humanitarian disaster in Yemen.

Iranian President-elect Ebrahim Raisi said at his first press conference that the economy is a top priority and that nuclear negotiations should continue — but that he won’t meet with US President Joe Biden. And, a lot of people are thinking these days, “where’s my stuff?” During the pandemic, global supply chains have been out of whack, sometimes with devastating impacts. Also, one rural Thai district has the beefiest COVID-19 vaccination incentive yet: a live cow.

It's election day in Iran. And the presidential election is already mired by controversy. Critics say the stage has deliberately been set for one candidate to win — the man closest to Iran's supreme leader. Also, throughout the US, states are pulling out all the stops to encourage people to get vaccinated, including lotteries. In Thailand, get vaccinated, win a cow. Plus, celebrating Juneteenth in China this year has a special meaning for Black Americans living there.

US-Russia relations over the years have been defined by altercation and disagreement. After Wednesday's summit meeting in Geneva, both Biden and Putin expressed a desire to turn the page. Also, since 2016, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs has led to thousands of killings. The International Criminal Court is now calling for an investigation of those deaths as war crimes. And, at the NATO leaders summit this week, the defense alliance said it would begin formally studying how climate change impacts security threats.

Despite tensions in the lead-up to the Biden-Putin summit, the two leaders were overly cordial in their remarks following their meeting in Geneva on Wednesday. And, dozens of Roma from Romania are reported to be among the thousands of undocumented migrants and asylum-seekers crossing the US-Mexico border in the last month. Also, Israel launched airstrikes on Gaza early Wednesday following Hamas sending incendiary balloons into Israel. This comes days after Israel's government shakeup and weeks after a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. 

On Tuesday, the Biden administration released a 32-page plan for confronting domestic terrorism. It identifies white supremacist violent extremism as the greatest terrorist threat facing the United States. And, Turkey has vaccinated only about 17% of its population so far against COVID-19. But a team of health workers in eastern Turkey is working as fast as it can to vaccinate people in the remote mountain villages. Also, enter the musical world of the Weimar Republic in 1920s Berlin with the Moka Efti Orchestra who created the music for the Netflix series, “Babylon Berlin.”

US President Joe Biden and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sat down on Monday for a face-to-face meeting on the sidelines of the NATO summit. In the US, there’s a growing push to require public schools to cover the histories of groups left out of history textbooks. Also, G-7 leaders pledged 1 billion vaccine doses to developing countries and agreed to step up action on climate change, but activists say they are unimpressed. And the Copa America soccer tournament kicked off in Brazil this week. A majority of Brazilians think it's dangerous to host the games amid COVID-19 concerns.

President Joe Biden meets world leaders at the G-7 summit. With post-Brexit tension between continental Europe and Britain, we look at the role Biden can play to help ease diplomatic tensions. Plus, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has launched a brutal crackdown on his political opponents. It appears to be an attempt to clear the field so he can run virtually unopposed in the November elections. And a look at the future of Afghanistan with the person in charge of diplomatic efforts to negotiate a deal between the US and the Taliban.