These are the top maybe-not headlines from the past 36-hours presented by The Conversation Project from raw engagement data from our social media to the headlines posted over the past day.
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The 8 topics that our followers ranked as the most conversational are:
SEX WORKERS ARE STRESSED, ANXIOUS AND DEPRESSED AMID COVID-19 PANDEMIC
As non-essential businesses close to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus, American workers are experiencing layoffs, pay cuts, and a whole lot of financial uncertainty. While on-the-books workers are being encouraged to file for unemployment and/or possibly being aided by Congress’s Families First Coronavirus Response Act, American sex workers are unlikely to benefit from either of these measures. “Sex workers cannot file for unemployment and are denied access to several aspects of the formal economy such as paid sick leave and healthcare,” Emily Coombes, a researcher and organizer based in Las Vegas, told Salon in an email. The Las Vegas Strip has shut down, putting service workers in a precarious situation — particularly sex workers. Sex work is notoriously precarious labor, meaning many sex workers were already struggling to make ends meet prior to the pandemic, especially those already marginalized in society. Coombes is helping organize a mutual aid fund for sex workers in Las Vegas via GoFundMe. A quick search of “sex workers” and “COVID-19” on GoFundMe reveals many others have turned to the online fundraising platform. Yet creating and marketing a fundraiser is not a universal skillset; not all sex workers have the technical equipment, or social media aptitude, to pivot so fast.
[SOURCE: salon.com]
MILWAUKEE LANDLORD SLASHES RENT TO $100 AMID CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK
The coronavirus crisis may have caused the economy to tank but one Milwaukee landlord is doing what he can to help out by slashing his two tenants’ April rent to $100. John Zutz, the owner of a three-family home, told WISN-TV he wanted to help where he can. Zutz’s good deed is saving his tenants $1,000, according to the station. He’ll see what happens when the May rent comes due. For now, Zutz hopes other landlords will see his story and do the same for their tenants if they can afford to, the station reported.
[SOURCE: foxnews.com]
PULL UP A CHAIR AND HEAR VIN SCULLY GIVE A MESSAGE OF HOPE AND OPTIMISM
Vin Scully says he and Sandi are hanging tough, and that he’s amazed he feels fine. But emotionally, he’s hurting through his quarantine like everyone else, in ways few thought they would ever be hurting. Scully does not remain melancholy for long. He is, remember, a believer in improbable years and impossible home runs. He reminds us that this country has endured and triumphed over great troubles. He knows from personal experience. Born in 1927 and growing up during the Great Depression, he has been part of that journey. Then, he says, “From depths of depression we fought our way through World War II, and if we can do that, we can certainly fight through this. I remember how happy and relieved and thrilled everybody was … when they signed the treaty with Japan, and the country just danced from one way or another. It’s the life of the world, the ups and downs, this is a down, we’re going to have to realistically accept it at what it is and we’ll get out of it, that’s all there is to it, we will definitely get out of it.” Scully, as usual, says he tries not to focus on the gloom, but ponder the good.
[SOURCE: msn.com]
KROGER COUPLE FREAKS OUT OVER NOT BEING ABLE TO BUY 552 CANS OF MOUNTAIN DEW
The nature of the coronavirus pandemic has heightened everyone’s stress levels, which makes each public encounter that much more riddled with anxiety, as evidenced by the recent video captured in a Kroger supermarket. In the video, one couple decides to try stocking up on MTN DEW — though Kroger has put in place rules to spread their products out so that all have the opportunity to purchase them and limiting the number of items an individual can purchase, as to avoid unnecessary supply-and-demand issues. Between the unexpected limitations and high-stress situation, the encounter resulted in an outburst of aggression and a number of tossed MTN DEW cans.
[SOURCE: comicbook.com]
UK PRIME MINISTER BORIS JOHNSON ORDERS BRITONS TO STAY AT HOME TO HALT SPREAD OF CORONAVIRUS
Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday ordered Britons to stay at home to try to halt the spread of coronavirus, imposing curbs on everyday life without precedent in peacetime. All but essential shops will close and people should no longer meet family or friends or risk being fined, Johnson said on Monday in a televised address to the nation. Johnson had resisted pressure to impose a full lockdown even as other European countries had done so, but was forced to change tack as projections showed the health system could become overwhelmed. Deaths from the virus in Britain jumped to 335 on Monday as the government said the military would help ship millions of items of personal protective equipment (PPE) including masks to healthcare workers who have complained of shortages.
[SOURCE: cnbc.com]
TRUMP ACTIVATES NATIONAL GUARD IN CALIFORNIA, N.Y., WASHINGTON
President Donald Trump announced Sunday that he has activated the National Guard in California, New York and Washington in an attempt to curb the spread of COVID-19. During a briefing by the White House Coronavirus Task Force, Trump announced that the federal government will fund the missions but all three states will remain in command of the National Guard. New York and Washington account for about half of confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States. Trump said he instructed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to supply four federal medical stations with 1,000 beds for New York, eight federal medical stations with 2,000 beds for California and three federal medical stations as well as three smaller medical stations with 1,000 beds for Washington. In addition, Washington will receive 369,000 N-95 respirators and 575,000 O-78 surgical masks, and New York will get 186,416 respirators and 444,000 surgical masks.
[SOURCE: upi.com]
‘ROSIE O’DONNELL SHOW’ RETURNS FOR ONE-NIGHT SPECIAL WITH NEIL PATRICK HARRIS, BILLY PORTER AND DOZENS MORE
The Rosie O’Donnell Show returned for its one-night-only special on Sunday, and the event was an enormously star-studded affair, all through the digital magic of video conferencing. The grand event was a live-streaming fundraiser dedicated to raising money for The Actors Fund amid the on-going coronavirus pandemic. To help the cause, O’Donnell enlisted the help of dozens of her friends and big Broadway stars who joined the show via video chat to talk about how they’ve been holding up in self-isolation, and a few even performed live. The relatably informal affair gave fans a look at how some big name stars are living life while stuck at home during the widespread COVID-19 outbreak — sweatpants, pajama shirts, at-home cooking and all.
[SOURCE: msn.com]
CORONAVIRUS: MADONNA CALLS PANDEMIC ‘THE GREAT EQUALISER’ IN BIZARRE NUDE BATHTUB VIDEO
Madonna has called coronavirus “the great equaliser” in a sombre nude video taken while she’s in the bath. The pop icon is seen sitting in a milky bathtub filled with rose petals in the video, while she remarks that the pandemic doesn’t care if you are rich or poor. “That’s the thing about COVID-19,” she says. “It doesn’t care about how rich you are, how famous you are, how funny you are, how smart you are, where you live, how old you are, what amazing stories you can tell. It’s the great equaliser and what’s terrible about it is what’s great about it.” Madonna previously baffled the internet by posting an edited version of her track “Vogue”, also recorded in her bathroom. In the video, she changed the word “vogue” to “fried fish”.
[SOURCE: independent.co.uk]
Eight Things To Talk About uses the raw engagement data from the social media engagement from The Conversation Project to generate the top-ranking headlines over the course of the past day.
A full weeks’ data (from Friday to Friday) is compiled, weighed, and sorted to produce the content for the Weekly Wrap-Up with J Cleveland Payne, published every Saturday as a podcast available at ThisIsTheConversation.com or wherever your favorite podcasts are found.
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