Axios PM
August 23, 2021
Good afternoon. Today's PM — edited by Laurin-Whitney Gottbrath — is 389 words, a 2-minute read.
âš¡ Situational awareness: Gov. Andrew Cuomo leaves office at 11:59 p.m. ET. Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul will then be sworn in as New York's first female governor. Go deeper: Cuomo's defiant farewell address.
1 big thing: Mask rage
Protesters rally outside Hewes Middle School in Tustin, Calif., on Aug. 13. Photo: Orange County Register via Getty Images
Back-to-school mask fights are getting scary and violent.
- Teachers have been punched, and parents are wielding bullhorns and even getting charged with crimes, Axios' Ivana Saric writes.
- School board members, county commissioners, doctors and local leaders are regularly confronted with angry taunts that compare them to the Taliban, Marxists and more, AP reports.
A parent in Austin ripped off a teacher's face mask during a "Meet the Teacher" event. Other parents screamed at teachers, demanding they remove their face coverings.
- Outside Sacramento, a parent left a teacher bleeding and requiring hospital treatment — after the parent tried to attack the principal over masks and the teacher jumped in, KCRA-TV reports.
In Nevada and Pennsylvania, school-board meetings this month got so out of hand that police were called.
2. Axios interview: YouTube's creator strategy
Photo illustration: Axios Visuals. Photos: Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunch, Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
YouTube chief product officer Neal Mohan tells Axios' Ina Fried that the Google-owned video site is working to be a better content moderator — in part because it's good for business.
The latest: YouTube announced today that it now has 2 million people in programs that enable creators to get paid.
On COVID misinformation, Mohan points to YouTube collaborations between creators and health authorities.
- "99.9% of creators are looking to do the right thing," he says. "I hope that we are perceived as ultimately a positive voice here."
3. Catch up quick
A U.S. Marine high-fives a child at Kabul airport yesterday. Photo: Sgt. Samuel Ruiz/U.S. Marine Corps via AP
- Twenty people have been killed in the chaos outside Kabul airport, most in shootings and stampedes, Reuters reports.
- 💉 The FDA gave full approval to Pfizer's vaccine. President Biden said that for those who have been hesitant, "the moment you’ve been waiting for is here." Go deeper.
- China is back to zero COVID cases, just over a month after taking draconian measures to stop the Delta variant, Bloomberg reports.
4. 1 🥧 to go
Photo: Marcia Miller
Above: Marcia Miller shared some samples of her Iowa State Fair pies with her neighbor, Axios Des Moines reporter Jason Clayworth.
- She wouldn't, however, give up the recipe for her black and blueberry cucumber cream pie.
And what would a 2021 State Fair be without ... llama yoga?