<em>The Atlantic Daily</em>: The Firsts

Sonnie Hereford IV

6 years old ♦ Fifth Avenue School ♦ Alabama, 1963

Hereford IV desegregated Alabama’s public schools in 1963. He was only 6 years old.

Millicent Brown

15 years old ♦ Rivers High School ♦ South Carolina, 1963

Brown changed Charleston, then watched it stay the same.

Frederick K. Brewington

9 years old ♦ Lindner Place Elementary School ♦ New York, 1966

Brewington’s education came at the end of a bitter civil-rights battle that engulfed New York State, more than a decade after Brown v. Board of Education.

33 days remain until the 2020 presidential election. Here’s today’s essential read:

The most illuminating moment of the debate occurred when the president went after one of Joe Biden’s children, Adam Serwer argues.

“Biden acted like a father, doing what almost any parent would have done,” he writes.

One question, answered: California continues to burn. Does wildfire smoke make COVID-19 worse?

The hosts of our Social Distance podcast talked with John Balmes, a pulmonologist who has studied inhaled pollutants for decades, to find out.

Here’s a snippet of their conversation:

John Balmes: One of the risk factors for smoke exposure is an increased risk of lower-respiratory-tract infections. That’s acute bronchitis and pneumonia, which is particularly problematic in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

James Hamblin: Does it increase your risk of having more severe disease once you’ve been infected if you’ve been living in a place that has high levels of exposure to particulate matter versus someplace else?

Balmes: Yes, there’s a building evidence with regard to air pollution, and particulate matter in particular, and COVID-19.

Find the full episode, “Fires Outside, Virus Inside,” on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Want to better understand this specific virus? Here are three key reads from our team:

We all need small delights. Here’s a break from the news:

This calls for a toast: Panic! at the Disco’s debut album, which turns 15 this week, is “an audacious and unlikely classic.”

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Caroline Mimbs Nyce is a senior associate editor at The Atlantic.