The New York Times
Opinion piece written by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. She writes, in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by a police officer, “This simultaneous collapse of politics and governance has forced people to take to the streets — to the detriment of their health and the health of others — to demand the most basic necessities of life, including the right to be free of police harassment or murder.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/opinion/george-floyd-minneapolis.html
Related from NPR: Why U.S. Needs Black Lives Matter Movement Today
https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/865685777/why-u-s-needs-black-lives-matter-movement-today

Politics & Polls Woocast Series
When COVID-19 first emerged in South Korea, the country’s rapid response and decisive intervention enabled the country to detect cases early, slowing the spread of the infection and controlling mortality rates. Now, the country faces a new spike in cases, leaving many to wonder if a second wave is coming. Sam Wang and Julian Zelizer discuss South Korea’s response to Covid-19 in this episode – recorded live on May 19 – which features Dr. Asaph Young Chun, director-general of Statistics Research Institute in South Korea, the state-run think tank of official statistics and data innovation.
http://wws.princeton.edu/news-and-events/news/item/politics-polls-187-south-korea%E2%80%99s-response-covid-19-featuring-asaph-young

Not all colleges and universities will survive this pandemic, says Kate Foster *93, president of The College of New Jersey. But the forest fire raging through higher education will also make room for new growth — opportunities for creative partnerships and possibilities.
http://weroar.princeton.edu/18-imagining-the-future-of-higher-education-what-comes-next?utm_source=pwb&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=communications

More honors and awards:

• Princeton awards five honorary degrees
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/05/31/princeton-awards-five-honorary-degrees

• Seniors recognized for thesis, seminar work
https://ams.princeton.edu/news/2019-20/seniors-recognized

• Princeton’s Phi Beta Kappa chapter honors Haynes, Lloyd with teaching awards
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/05/27/princetons-phi-beta-kappa-chapter-honors-haynes-lloyd-teaching-awards

• Physics faculty members awarded Moore Foundation funding for quantum systems
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/05/28/physics-faculty-members-awarded-moore-foundation-funding-quantum-systems

• AIA Awards Over $380,000 To Archaeological Projects Around The World
https://www.archaeological.org/aia-awards-over-380000-to-archaeological-projects-around-the-world/

While the method may have been different, the celebration was the same as the Princeton Athletics community gathered on May 28 for a virtual Gary Walters ’67 Princeton Varsity Club Awards Banquet. As part of the ceremony, major athletic awards were presented to students in the Class of 2020.
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/05/29/princeton-seniors-awarded-achievements-athletics-academics-leadership

Princeton seniors Matthew Oakland and Olivia Ott have been awarded two of the University’s highest awards for graduating students. Oakland, of Elk Grove, California, has been given the Frederick Douglass Service Award. Ott, of Hailey, Idaho, received the Harold Willis Dodds Achievement Prize.
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/05/27/princeton-seniors-oakland-ott-receive-awards-leadership-and-service

Princeton seniors Juston Forte and Preeti Iyer have been honored for their service to the Class of 2020 and to the University. Forte was awarded the W. Sanderson Detwiler 1903 Prize, which is given to a senior who, in the judgment of classmates, has done the most for their class. Iyer received the Walter E. Hope Class of 1901 Medal, which recognizes the senior who, in the judgment of the student’s classmates, has done the most for Princeton.
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/05/26/seniors-forte-and-iyer-recognized-their-service-princeton-class-2020

Four Princeton University faculty members have been named recipients of the Graduate Mentoring Awards by the McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning and will be honored during the Graduate School’s virtual Hooding ceremony at 4 p.m., Friday, May 29. The mentoring award recognizes Princeton faculty members who nurture the intellectual, professional and personal growth of their graduate students.
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/05/26/four-faculty-members-honored-excellence-mentoring-graduate-students

More voices in the News:

• Amaney Jamal: On Belonging, Self-Acceptance, and Success (The Maliheh Paryavi Podcast)
https://www.malihehparyavi.com/podcast/amaney-jamal

• Julian Zelizer: Trump, Biden signal how ugly the campaign will be (The Hill)
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/499628-trump-biden-signal-how-ugly-the-campaign-will-be

• Stephen Kotkin: Is this the end of globalization?(Top1000funds.com)
https://www.top1000funds.com/2020/05/coronavirus-is-this-the-end-of-globalis/

• Karl Kusserow: The climate change clues hidden in art history (BBC)
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20200528-the-climate-change-clues-hidden-in-art-history

• Dan-el Padilla Peralta: Aesop and the Fables (BBC World Service)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cszjvd

• Bruce Blair: Donald Trump’s Nuke-Testing Idea Is ‘Catastrophically Stupid’
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2020/05/29/donald-trumps-nuke-testing-idea-is-catastrophically-stupid/#1904002b5c11

PPPL
Blobs can wreak havoc in plasma required for fusion reactions. This bubble-like turbulence swells up at the edge of fusion plasmas and drains heat from the edge, limiting the efficiency of fusion reactions in doughnut-shaped fusion facilities called “tokamaks.” Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have now discovered a surprising correlation of the blobs with fluctuations of the magnetic field that confines the plasma fueling fusion reactions in the device core.
https://www.pppl.gov/news/2020/05/return-blob-scientists-find-surprising-link-troublesome-turbulence-edge-fusion-plasmas

Smithsonian Magazine
Per a statement from Princeton University, researchers used complex computer analysis to answer two overarching questions: How can builders construct such large structures without supporting framework, and what can we can learn from Renaissance techniques? Princeton’s Sigrid Adriaenssens and Vittorio Paris and Attilio Pizzigoni of the University of Bergamo analyzed domes designed by Antonio Sangallo the Younger and his family of architects, who created many such structures in 15th- and 16th-century Italy.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-renaissance-duomos-were-built-180974965/
Related from Archinect: Princeton University researchers crack secret to Italian renaissance dome construction
https://archinect.com/news/article/150198989/princeton-university-researchers-crack-secret-to-italian-renaissance-dome-construction

The Economist
Features Leonard Wantchekon, who is trying to build a world-class university in Benin.
https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2020/05/21/trust-slavery-and-the-african-school-of-economics

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor:

— Of Course There Are Protests. The State Is Failing Black People. (The New York Times)

— Why U.S. Needs Black Lives Matter Movement Today (NPR)

Eddie Glaude:

—Protests Indicate US Is On ‘Cusp Of Fundamental Transformation,’ Eddie Glaude Says (WBUR)

—Eddie Glaude on death of George Floyd: ‘Police don’t value the lives of black folk’ (MSNBC)

—‘It’s a blue-soaked anger’: Amid protests, African Americans feel a private grief (The Washington Post)

—With ‘shooting’ tweet, Trump inflames rather than soothes tensions amid Minneapolis unrest (The Washington Post)

—George Floyd’s Murder Shows Once More That We Cannot Wait For White America to End Racism (TIME)

Omar Wasow:

—How Violent Protests Change Politics (The New Yorker)

—What the 1960s can teach us about modern-day protests (PBS News Hour)

Julian Zelizer:

—Buildings burn, and Trump talks tough. Where are the healers? (The Washington Post)

—It’s been five decades since 1968, and things are somehow worse (CNN)

Excerpt:

We have witnessed yet again how this nation’s long legacy of racism continues to damage and destroy the lives of black people. The heartless killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis occurred soon after the unjust shootings of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia and Breonna Taylor in Louisville. It coincided with the appalling harassment of Christian Cooper in New York’s Central Park, an incident that demonstrated how easily a racist complaint could put a black man in danger. The COVID-19 pandemic itself has killed black and brown Americans at higher rates than other groups, magnifying disparities in healthcare and economic well-being.

We all have a responsibility to stand up against racism, wherever and whenever we encounter it. Commitments to diversity, inclusivity, and human rights are fundamental to the mission of Princeton University. I ask all of us to join the graduates in the Class of 2020 in their quest to form a better society, one that confronts racism honestly and strives relentlessly for equality and justice.

The Washington Post, 6/1
Opinion piece written by Anne Case and Angus Deaton. They write, “But a wave of deaths of despair is highly unlikely. Recessions are immensely costly because they disrupt people’s lives, deprive them of work and income and inhibit many of the activities that make life worth living. We need to find safe ways of getting back to work. But we should not scare ourselves with nightmares about tens of thousands of additional suicides or drug overdoses.”
www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/suicide-coronavirus-opioids-deaths-shutdown/2020/05/31/bf6ddd94-a060-11ea-81bb-c2f70f01034b_story.html

The New York Times
Princeton’s Joshua Rabinowitz said, “This is not a virus for which hand washing seems like it will be enough. We have to limit crowds, we have to wear masks.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/health/coronavirus-transmission-dose.html

The Washington Post
Opinion piece written by Avram Alpert, an instructor, researcher and theorist in the Princeton University writing program. Alpert writes, “This tendency, to couch our privilege in terms of luck, breaks with the meritocratic myth that those who reap society’s highest rewards do so purely through their ingenuity, toil and virtue. Researchers have outlined the many faults in this belief system. And it can be particularly galling today, when the coronavirus pandemic has revealed with thundering finality that the world does not depend on the powerful and the celebrated so much as the earnest, anonymous workers — hospital support staffers, supermarket clerks, delivery people.”
www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/coronavirus-luck-inequality-privilege/2020/05/26/2dc48700-9b86-11ea-ac72-3841fcc9b35f_story.html

Centraljersey.com
Features alumnus Gordon Douglas and his episode of ‘We Roar.’ No vaccine has ever come to market in less than four years, says Douglas ’55, the former president of Merck’s vaccine division and a doctor with decades of clinical and academic experience. In the episode he provides his recommendations on speeding up the process.
https://centraljersey.com/2020/05/27/former-merck-official-talks-about-potential-covid-19-vaccines/?fbclid=IwAR0JHtbqny6CksYTmYGl-mE_ONoHkL1iOr39l-m6Mk8-LhoYjSjOwo6bs_I