Covid Nation: New cases of Covid-19 have dropped 18 percent over the past two weeks, giving encouragement that the summer surge may be coming to an end.

  Deaths in that same period were up 23 percent, but deaths as you might expect always lag behind infections. An Idaho coroner says so many people are dying of Covid-19 in that state that the funeral homes are running out of space to handle the bodies.

  In the political divide over Covid and mask mandates, some state governors have offered parents vouchers to send their kids to schools that do not require children to wear masks. Interest is reported to be high in Arizona, for instance, where Gov. Doug Ducey is offering $7,000 in federal COVID-19 relief funds to help parents send their child to a non-masking school.

 In New York, health care workers face a deadline today to get vaccinated or lose their jobs. The vast majority of healthcare workers are already vaccinated, but an exit of hundreds of people would put a further strain on facilities already struggling with the load of Covid cases.

  This morning, 688,041 Americans are dead of Covid-19.

Shakeup in Germany: With their leader retiring after 16 years in office, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat party has been narrowly defeated in yesterday’s elections by the Social Democratic Party. The difference was only 1.6 percent, meaning there will likely be long negotiations to forge a ruling coalition in the German parliament.

  The Social Democrat candidate, Olaf Scholz, said the party’s gain of five points from 2017, reaching 25.7 percent of the vote, gives them the mandate to form the next government.

Off the Rails: Three people died and at least 50 were injured over the weekend in the derailment of an Amtrak passenger train in rural Montana. Eight cars of the Empire Builder went off the rails at about 4 pm Saturday near Joplin, Montana, which is about 200 miles north of Helena.

  One car came to rest on its side.

  The train consisted of two locomotives and 10 cars. Amtrak said about 141 passengers and 16 crew members were on board. No cause for the accident was immediately given.

Murder, She Wrote: Murder in the United States spiked by an astounding 29 percent in 2020, the biggest rise since the FBI started keeping statistics in 1960. A total of 21,500 people were e in this country last year. 

  Previously the worst year was 1968, when murder rose by 12.7 percent.

  Much of last year’s dramatic increase can be attributed to the increased carrying of guns. About 77 percent of reported murders were committed with a gun, the highest percentage ever reported, up from 67 percent 10 years ago.

House Party: University of Utah football player Aaron Lowe died in a shooting during a house party around midnight Saturday. A second person was critically injured and police were still looking for a suspect. 

  Lowe, a safety in his third season with the football team, was the first player to receive a scholarship in honor of former Utes player Ty Jordan, who died in an accidental shooting in December 2020. Lowe had switched his jersey number from 2 to 22 to honor his dead friend.

And the Champeen Is: Oleksandr Usyk of Ukraine beat the crap out of England’s Anthony Joshua Saturday night to take the world heavyweight boxing titles. 

  The former undisputed cruiserweight champion and 2012 Olympic gold medalist is shorter, lighter, and older than Joshua, but he dominated.

 “I had no objective to knock him out,” Usyk said after the fight. “My trainers, my corner pushed me not to do that. So at the beginning I hit him hard. I just tried to knock him out. Then, my trainer said ‘Just stop and do your job.’”

The Spin Rack: Israeli soldiers killed five Palestinian gunmen over the weekend in several gunfights during a sweep operation against Hamas militants. — Eight frat boys were arrested and three others indicted in the hazing death last February of 19-year-old Adam Oakes, a student at Virginia Commonwealth University. After following a command to drink a whole bottle of jack Daniel’s whiskey, Oakes was found dead the next morning. — Voters in Switzerland decided overwhelmingly yesterday to legalize same-sex marriage, becoming one of the last in Western Europe to do so.

Broadway is Back: “Moulin Rouge!” and “The Inheritance” were the big winners last night at Broadway’s Tony Awards, held for the first time in two years.

  In the opening number tip of the mask to the pandemic, host Leslie Odom Jr. sang “We gotta ask that you wear that mask until everything feels right, ‘cuz it’s no great favor to care about your neighbor when Broadway’s back tonight.”

  In the opening number tip of the mask to the pandemic, host Leslie Odom Jr. sang “We gotta ask that you wear that mask until everything feels right, ‘cuz it’s no great favor to care about your neighbor when Broadway’s back tonight.”