Tokyo enters a state of emergency as the Summer Olympics near, why sports are fun for so many people, and more in our staff picks for the weekend.

Ben Palmer's reads

The pandemic has changed how Americans tip. With as much focus as there was on frontline workers in the midst of the pandemic, how much did Americans tip restaurant workers? Apparently more than normal, Saahil Desai writes for The Atlantic. Desai looks at data provided by Square to see how much more Americans tipped restaurant workers during the pandemic and how tipping has changed as more Americans return to eating out.

Why are sports so much fun for so many people? Being a sports fan often comes with a whole host of emotions, from the joy of winning to the pain of defeat, but why are sports so fun for so many people? Writing for the Washington Post, Thomas Boswell, who has been writing about sports for over 50 years, uses the exciting recent play of the Washington Nationals to help explain why people love sports.

Vivian Le's reads

Tokyo to enter a state of emergency as Summer Olympics near. The Summer Olympics, which have already been delayed a year, are likely to occur with Tokyo under a state of emergency, the city's fourth since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. Writing for the Associated Press, Mari Yamaguchi outlines the city's rising Covid-19 cases and explains how the state of emergency will affect how people will be able to experience the Olympic Games.

Prison guards lag in vaccination rates even as prisoners are vaccinated. During the pandemic, Covid-19 cases proliferated in prisons, and unions representing corrections officers lobbied to include prison staffers as frontline workers so that they could get vaccinated more quickly. Now, while the majority of prisoners have been vaccinated, most prison staff have not. Writing for Kaiser Health News, Amy Worden discusses the effects that unvaccinated prison staff may have on prisons and the community at-large, as well as efforts by corrections departments to encourage vaccination.