Featured – Why Biden’s Choice of Running Mate Has Momentous Implications. By Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns / NYT

Joe Biden has hinted that he might serve only one term if he wins. That would set up a woman as the front-runner for 2024 and perhaps define the Democratic agenda for the next decade.“I view myself as a transition candidate,” Mr. Biden said during an online fund-raiser last week, likening his would-be presidential appointments to an athletic team stocking its roster with promising talent: “You got to get more people on the bench that are ready to go in — ‘Put me in coach, I’m ready to play.’ Well, there’s a lot of people that are ready to play, women and men.”  Read more 

Related: Biden Has a Real Latino Problem. By Leon Krauze / Slate

Will Americans Lose Their Right to Vote in the Pandemic? By Emily Bazelon / NYT Mag

The safest way to cast a ballot will very likely be by mail. But with opposition from the president, limited funding and time running out, will that option be available? A successful election will require some Covid-era changes. The main one is enabling tens of millions more people to vote by mail (also called absentee balloting — the terms are synonymous) than have ever done so before. “You’ve heard the election administrator’s prayer, right?” Persily asked me. “Whatever happens, dear Lord, please let it not be close.” Read more 

Related: We Should Never Have to Vote in Person Again. By Charlotte Hill, Jacob Grumbach, Adam Bonica and Hakeem Jefferson / NYT

Black communities account for disproportionate number of Covid-19 deaths in the US, study finds. By Shelby Lin Erdman / CNN

Related:  Black Americans are bearing the brunt of coronavirus recession – this should come as no surprise. William M. Rogers III / The Conversation

People of color, women shoulder front-line work during pandemic. By Associated Press / NBC News

The burden has been borne unevenly across gender, racial and socioeconomic lines, according to an Associated Press analysis of census data in the country’s 100 largest cities. They are mostly women, people of color and more likely to be immigrants. Workers deemed “essential” are also more likely to live below the federal poverty line or hover just above it. They are more likely to have children at home, and many live with others who also have front-line jobs. Read more 

Covid-19’s Race and Class Warfare. By Charles M. Blow / NYT

People — mostly white, sometimes armed, occasionally carrying Confederate flags or hoisting placards emblazoned with a Nazi slogan from the Holocaust — have been loudly protesting to push their state governments to reopen business and spaces before enough progress has been made to contain the coronavirus. This is yet another illustration of the race and class divide this pandemic has illuminated in this country. Read more 

We Asked 30,000 Black Americans What They Need to Survive. Here’s What They Said. By Alicia Garza / Time

In 2018, we launched our Black Census Project, polling 30,000 respondents in the largest survey of Black people conducted in the United States since Reconstruction. It was clear from the results that the pain and legacy of slavery and Jim Crow still infect the everyday lives of Black communities. Many of us experience the written and unwritten rules in society that continue to conspire against us—because the rules of the game are, in fact, rigged. Read more 

When Maternity Wards in Black Neighborhoods Disappear. By Kelly Glass / NYT

Black women in America are three times more likely to die of pregnancy- and childbirth-related causes than white women are, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Chicago, that tragic disparity doubles, with black women six times more likely than white women to die because of pregnancy and childbirth and even more experiencing injury or trauma. Experts fear that closures will become a trend nationwide because of the coronavirus, devastating an already vulnerable population. Read more 

Navajo Nation Suffers Third-Highest COVID-19 Infection Rate in U.S. with Limited Healthcare & Water. By Amy Goodman / Democracy Now

We get an update from two doctors treating patients with the Navajo Nation, the largest Indigenous reservation in the country, which has been hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic. Listen here 

Hate crimes and history: Asian American leaders discuss racism during the pandemic. By Julian Shen-Berro / NBC News

On Wednesday, Zia, Walker, Nguyen and other prominent Asian American community leaders spoke about the current climate as part of the Center for Asian American Media’s digital town hall, “Asian Americans in the Time of COVID-19.” The town hall, which was moderated by PBS Newshour correspondent Amna Nawaz, highlighted various moments in Asian American history and culture in an effort to contextualize and understand the experiences of Asian Americans during the pandemic. Listen here 

‘Dying of whiteness’ during the coronavirus pandemic. By Jonathan Capehart / Wash Post Podcast

In his book “Dying of Whiteness: How the politics of racial resentment is killing America’s heartland,” Jonathan Metzl, the director of Vanderbilt University’s Center for Medicine, Health and Society, put a human face on the opposition to many policies that would save lives and livelihoods. We talked all about it when I interviewed him back in January. I brought Metzl back because the novel coronavirus is amplifying his argument. Listen here 

Larry Wilmore: Trump ‘Was a Lock’ Before the Coronavirus. By Matt Wilstein / The Daily Beast Podcast

Larry Wilmore knew Donald Trump was going to win the 2016 election from the very beginning. “I did not like that prediction,” he tells me on this week’s episode of The Last Laugh podcast. When it actually happened, he adds, “I was still surprised, but not shocked. Most of the people I know were shocked.” “For me, I just want Trump gone,” he says. “I’m a very simple creature. This is one of the rare times I’m voting against someone. I rarely do that.” Listen here 

Ida B. Wells Awarded Posthumous Pulitzer Prize For Lynching Investigations. By Sanjana Karanth / HuffPost