The senate race is especially important this year because, if Joe Biden wins, he and the house will be unable to pass anything with the currently Republican senate. The democrats are expected to need to flip four seats to gain a 50-50 tie (that would be decided by the VP and POTUS), and North Carolina is one of the most important of those four. It is a purple state that usually picks a democratic governor, but the Republican president. However, the Democrats have been recently enacting a successful strategy of nominating moderate, veteran candidates and did the same with Thom Tillis. He was expected to win already, when Thom was seen at the Supreme Court announcement party for Amy Barret, without a mask, the day before Trump announced that he had corona virus. Republican voters tend to be more moderate and do believe in the virus in NC, yet are often still Trump supporters. So Tillis is stuck between supporting the president and receiving backlash for Trump's more radical and irresponsible actions. All of which led analysts to believe that the race would be a democratic landslide, until news broke that dem candidate Cal Cunningham was having an affair. Now, it is a complete guess as to who will win as polls have not shown obvious fall out from either incident. (Plus it's a podcast, so it's nice to not look at a screen).

Under threats of tariffs from European countries who pledged to reach peak emissions in 2025, and a hope to prove itself as a global example and superpower, Xi Jinping has pledged to greatly decrease emissions and peak at 2030. Although he has no given specific details (as China may rely on coal to boost its economy after the virus), the next five-year plan will hopefully layout a more specific way that China will enact these necessary changes.

This article, from a self proclaimed "unbiased" German media source, explores how Japan was able to limit covid cases so well. Compared to most other countries, Japan has significant risk factors: a dense population with a large concentration of old people and a flow of traffic from neighboring China. Yet, they have wildly low numbers of cases and deaths. Although some political scientists theorize that the government has under tested in order to appear organized and keep their 2020 olympics position, many believe that tests were simply preserved in case of emergency. In either case, Japan's hygienic culture is indisputably helpful. An interviewed citizen said that they "didn't need" covid to "teach" them how to wash their hands or wear a mask. In fact, wearing a mask is seen as a civic duty and is seen as the bare minimum for every person. (Flu rates actually decreased due to such strict mask wearing). As a result, Japanese people are able to continue with many regularly scheduled activities; school, festivals, even amusement parks began to re-open by March.