Viral News: Russian president Vladimir Putin announced that his country has developed an effective coronavirus vaccine even though clinical trials have not been completed.

  “It works effectively enough, forms a stable immunity and I repeat, it has gone through all necessary tests,” Putin told a Cabinet meeting. A badly made vaccine could make a person more likely … not less … to get the disease.

  President Trump said yesterday that the great pandemic of 1917 probably ended World War II. And he thinks Joe Biden has dementia.

  This morning, the world has surpassed 20 million cases with 731,570 deaths. In the US, 163,465 people are dead of the coronavirus. 

Sweet Home: Downtown Chicago was under curfew last night after 100 people were arrested in rioting and looting Sunday.  Hundreds of people looted dozens of luxury shops from the South Loop to Lincoln Park, leaving shattered glass and empty storefronts. 

 The incident appeared to have been sparked by the police shooting and wounding of a man they said fired at them first.

  In resulting rioting, stores hit along Chicago’s Magnificent Mile shopping strip included Coach, Timberland, Nike, Nordstrom, Burberry, Macy’s,  Ugg, Saks Fifth Avenue, Ralph Lauren, and a list of others. Many were emptied out.

Blowback: As citizens clash with soldiers in the streets outside the government building, Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab and his cabinet resigned yesterday under pressure following last week’s cataclysmic explosion at the port of Beirut that killed at least 200 people and damaged or destroyed large parts of the central city.

  The explosion, which looked like a mini nuclear bomb, was created by 2,700 tons of stored ammonium nitrate fertilizer, a substance sometimes used for terrorist bombs.

  “I said that corruption is rooted in every part of the state,” the prime minister said in a televised statement, “But I found out that corruption is greater than the state. He said, “This disaster is the result of chronic corruption.”

  Protesters are calling for international authorities to take over the inquiry. They are also demanding a purge of entrenched layers of bureaucracy that have siphoned off the country’s wealth and provided little in public services. 

Belarus: Thousands of people turned out in the streets of Minsk to protest the re-election of  President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who claimed to have won in a landslide. One man was killed Monday when a homemade bomb went off in his hand.

  Opposition candidate Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya won less than 10 percent of the vote, according to results announced by the Central Election Commission.

  Tsikhanouskaya said the results giving Lukashenka his sixth term in office were rigged. She said, “I consider myself the winner in the presidential election.” Supersize Me: Eight months after McDonalds’ CEO Steve Easterbrook was shown the door for sexting with a subordinate and walked away with $40 million in severance, the company is suing to get the money back, claiming Easterbrook concealed evidence during the internal investigation.

  After receiving tips that Easterbrook had a sexual relationships with as many as three other McDonalds employees while he was running the burger chain, the company filed the lawsuit, accusing Easterbrook of lying, concealing evidence, and fraud.

If You Can’t Stand the Heat: The rural New York of home of television chef Rachel Ray appears to be a near total loss after fire burned through the house Sunday night. Pictures show flames in the windows and burning through the roof in several places.

  Ray has been shooting her daytime talk show “The Rachel Ray Show” from her home since the pandemic shut down studios. She said neither she, her husband, nor her mother were injured.

  The house is in Lake Luzerne on the edge of the Adirondacks, southeast of Lake George. Fire authorities said it may take a week to determine the cause of the fire, but it appears to have started on the second floor, not the kitchen.

Gridiron Blues: The Big 10 became the first of the major college football leagues to cancel its 2020 season because of the coronavirus even as some “student athletes” are campaigning to play. The Big 10includes Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan and Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa.

  On Twitter, players including quarterbacks Justin Field of Ohio State    and Trevor Lawrence of Clemson, as well as the running back Najee Harris of Alabama, all posted the same plea that says: “We all want to play football this season.” They urged conferences to adopt universal health guidelines and said players should be allowed to sit it out if they wish.”

The Bulletin Board: Three Baltimore row houses were levelled yesterday in a gas explosion. One person was killed — President Trump says he has narrowed the locations for his nomination acceptance speech to the White House and “The Great Battlefield of Gettysburg.” He thinks he’s Abraham Lincoln. And either way he would be conducting partisan politics on federal property. — The President was abruptly pulled from a press conference yesterday after a uniformed Secret Service officer engaged in a brief gunfight outside. The officer and his assailant both were wounded. 

It’s Summertime: And the livin’ is easy. The editorial staff of the Rooney report will be taking two days off for a corporate bonding exercise with the chief aviation correspondent and our ski industry stringer. We’ll be back in your inbox Friday.

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