The Fitness Magazine: Your Presidential Daily Brief: Trump Touches Down in Israel

IMPORTANT

May 22, 2017

Brazilian police arrest a suspected drug user in Sao Paulo's Cracolandia as part of a crackdown this month that saw 40 people arrested yesterday. Source: Getty

Expectations Mixed as Trump Touches Down in Israel

What can you do in 36 hours? That's how long President Donald Trump will have in Israel and the West Bank, where he's expressed hope that Israelis and Palestinians will broker peace directly in what he calls "the ultimate deal." Yesterday in Riyadh, Trump spoke against "Islamic extremism" and urged Middle Eastern leaders to isolate Iran and fight ISIS. During his visit, the president may be asked to address his reported disclosure of Israeli-provided classified intelligence to Russian officials and his promise to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.

Sources: NYT, Washington Post, BBC, DW

Police Arrest Scores in Sweep of Sao Paulo's 'Crackland'

It's the beginning of a new era. Yesterday 500 armed Brazilian police cracked down on Cracolandia, an area in São Paulo where drugs have been bought and sold freely for years. About 40 people were arrested on suspicion of trafficking, while angry addicts and community members vandalized and looted the area. Mayor João Doria promised that Crackland "won't come back," pointing to plans to deploy police and install CCTV cameras, but he acknowledged that the area's historical drug problems may require more than simple brute force to cure.

Sources: BBC, Japan Times

As Greek Bailout Stalls, Anarchists Prop Up Social Services

Austerity breeds strange bedfellows. European finance ministers are meeting in Brussels today to try to reach an agreement on debt relief for Greece, something the IMF's been demanding but Germany's ruling party opposes. German Finance Minister Sigmar Gabriel, however, has made an impassioned plea for mercy toward Greece as the country struggles under its seventh year of austerity and looming repayments that will come due in July. Meanwhile, members of the country's large anarchist contingent have stepped up to help provide public services to struggling, impoverished Greeks.

Sources: NYT, Bloomberg, DW

Ford to Fire CEO Amid Investor Concerns

This goes straight to the top. Since Mark Fields took the wheel three years ago, shares have dropped 40 percent, leading investors and analysts to criticize his leadership. Ford's first quarter results saw a $1.5 billion profit drop and lost market share, and last week Fields announced that 1,400 jobs will be cut. His job will reportedly be another casualty. Fields will be replaced by Jim Hackett, who currently leads the autonomous technology division. Investors hope Hackett can help Ford stop lagging behind competitors when it comes to driverless cars.

Sources: FT (sub), Reuters

Briefly

Know This: A hospital bombing in Thailand has wounded 24 people. Indonesia has arrested 141 men at what the government says was a gay sex party in a Jakarta sauna, another sign of the country's crackdown on its LGBT community. And Cloud Computing won the Preakness Stakes this weekend, dashing Kentucky Derby winner Always Dreaming's hopes for a Triple Crown.

Watch This: Around a hundred Notre Dame graduates walked out of their own graduation ceremony yesterday to protest the choice of Vice President Mike Pence as commencement speaker.

Talk to Us: We want your feedback on the Presidential Daily Brief - what you think we're doing right and what we should be doing differently. Send us an email at pdbrief@ozy.com.

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Read a Book, Gamble With Your Life

In 19th-century England, fears over women reading hit hysterical highs. Doctors - male and female - worried that the sensational plots of novels could make ladies insane, infertile or prematurely "developed." There have been times in history when reading could result in a death sentence. So why is literacy so scary for despots?

Sources: OZY

INTRIGUING

Leaked Facebook Content Guidelines Raise Eyebrows

But is the manual in control? Leaked rulebooks for Facebook's content managers, who must wade through posts from the site's nearly 2 billion users, reveal a complicated soup of dos and don'ts. The social network has to balance its identity as a tech company with that of a media company, keeping censorship from overwhelming free expression while dealing with an increasing number of disturbing incidents, like murders and other crimes streamed live. Meanwhile, Facebook points to overwhelmed moderators for high-profile errors when it comes to deleting or censoring content unnecessarily.

Sources: The Guardian, The Verge, Mashable

Trump Orb Photo Sends Internet Meme-Crazy

All hail the orb. A photo of President Trump and his Egyptian and Saudi counterparts grasping an illuminated globe at the launch of Riyadh's Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology went viral, with Twitter users comparing them to villains from Superman and Lord of the Rings. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and UAE have pledged $100 million to Ivanka Trump's Women Entrepreneurs Fund, despite concerns that her White House post could influence policy toward the donor countries. Critics also observed how the president lambasted the Clinton Foundation last year for accepting Saudi contributions.

Sources: The Hill, Newsweek, CNBC

Iconic Everest Feature Confirmed Destroyed

"The Hillary Step is no more." So wrote British mountaineer Tim Mosedale after summiting the world's tallest peak, confirming the destruction of one of Everest's most famous features. The Hillary Step, a 40-foot rocky outcrop near the 29,029-foot summit, was thought destroyed after Nepal's 2015 earthquake, but heavy snow since had made confirmation impossible. According to Mosedale, the loss of the outcrop - named for Edmund Hillary, who with Tenzing Norgay was the first to reach Everest's peak in 1953 - may have left unstable rubble, making the climb even trickier.

Sources: Quartz, Daily Mail

Ringling Bros. Circus Closes After 146 Years

The elephants won't forget. Declining interest and untenable costs forced Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus to close - after a final "celebration" show at Nassau Coliseum in New York yesterday, complete with acrobats, tiger-tamers, jugglers and clowns. Over 19,000 people tuned in to a live broadcast online. Animal rights groups have targeted the circus for decades over its use of performing animals, and they say the issue has finally become mainstream. PETA tweeted triumphantly to "herald the end of the saddest show on earth."

Sources: NPR, USA Today

Fair-Weather Athletes Are Flocking to Cold-Weather Sports

They're warming up to the idea. Aspiring athletes from tropical countries are training hard in curling, skiing and snowboarding, hoping to break the ice on their Winter Olympics dreams and take home the first winter sports medals for their balmy nations. Thanks in part to globalization, athletes from tropical countries like Vietnam and Togo are improvising to overcome a lack of practice facilities. Some head to intensive cold-weather training programs to build up their tolerance, while others practice their snowboarding skills on sand dunes.

Sources: OZY