Hard Numbers: Biden is losing Black voters, Southern Brazil gasps for air, Turkey strikes Kurdish militants, Vultures vanish from the skies of South Asia
62: A new poll finds that just 62% of Black Americans are “absolutely certain” they’ll vote in November, down 12 points since June 2020. Overall, American interest in voting dropped by four points. That’s bad news for President Joe Biden who – like all Democrats for the past half-century – has relied heavily on Black American voters at the polls. But the study, conducted by the Washington Post and IPSOS, shows Black voters, particularly younger ones, aren’t happy with his handling of the economy, criminal justice reform, or the war in Gaza.
75: At least 75 people have been killed and more than 100 reported missing after massive floods swept through the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul over the weekend, washing away roads and bridges, knocking out power and water, and causing deadly landslides. The local governor said rebuilding will require “a kind of Marshall Plan.” Trivia: You probably know a famous person from Rio Grande do Sul – supermodel Gisele Bündchen.
16: A Turkish airstrike on a camp across the border in northern Iraq reportedly killed at least 16 members of the Kurdistan Workers Party, aka PKK. The PKK, which has waged a decades-long armed insurgency against the Turkish state, has long had a presence in Kurdish-controlled regions of Northern Iraq and Syria. It is designated as a terrorist group by Turkey, the US, and the EU. Allies of the PKK, however, have helped the US to fight against ISIS.
2: The Parsis, a tiny religious minority in South Asia who follow Zoroastrian burial rites in which dead bodies are left atop “towers of silence” to be picked clean by vultures, have a big problem: a vulture shortage. In Karachi, a city of 20 million, the 800 remaining Parsis have just two towers of silence left. In recent decades regional vulture populations have been decimated because of an anti-inflammatory drug in cattle that is lethal for the scavenging birds.