Early Bird: Kamala Harris teamed up with Macron. Social network Parler has risen from the dead. Toronto showed off its skyscrapers

Kamala Harris made a promise to cooperate with France

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In her second conversation with a foreign statesman in office, the Vice President of the United States of America teamed up with French President Emmanuel Macron. She had made her first phone call on February 1, contacting Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The highest-ranking female politician in US history has expressed her commitment to strengthening bilateral ties between the United States and France and revitalizing the transatlantic alliance. Harris and Macron agreed on the need for close bilateral and multilateral cooperation in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic or climate changes and promoting democracy worldwide. The 56-year-old lawyer thanked the French president for his views on gender equality, and she didn't forget to praise the French contribution to NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover.

The British coronavirus mutation is flooding the Czech Republic

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The proportion of samples in which the British coronavirus mutation has been found in our country has climbed up to 50%. In the Liberec or Hradec Králové region, this percentage has already been exceeded. The worst situation in this respect can be observed in the Liberec region, where almost three-quarters of patients are infected with the British mutation. This very coronavirus strain is blamed for the fact that the adopted anti-epidemic measures aren't working as they should be in the Czech Republic.

"Typical of this mutation is that it can overcome even the measures we have set up so far. Far less non-compliance than before can result in transmission,"

said Minister of Health Jan Blatný. He is in for some very hard days this week, as negotiations with the opposition and the governors on the form of a pandemic law, which needs to be approved in an accelerated reading in the Chamber of Deputies, are to take place. The opposition started putting together a list of comments already yesterday, as soon as the law had been introduced, and they are not satisfied with its current form. Blatný said that he was ready for an extensive debate and that the government would try to incorporate the comments.

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The social network Parler is back

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After more than a month's downtime, the controversial social network has once again made its way into online space. The company announced in a press release that the website was now accessible to users who were already registered on the network. They will start approving new registrations from next week. The new interim CEO is Mark Meckler, who previously co-founded the right-wing Tea Party Patriots group. User accounts from the old version of Parler have been restored, but the posts are gone. This social network is considered politically ambiguous. However, the loosely moderated website, which barely regulates its content, soon became a paradise for conservative users, who had earned themselves a number of bans on other social networks for their opinions. After the presidential election, Parler became the centre of the pro-Trump campaign "Stop the steal", which resulted in a deadly attempt to overturn the election result in the Capitol.

The Oscar-winning Parasite will have a sequel

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A year ago, the Korean film Parasite won the Oscar. The movie could boast not one, but four prestigious awards - it dominated the most prestigious category, Best Film, as well as Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and the Best Foreign Language Film. It is therefore no wonder that award-winning South Korean director Pong Chun-ho worked so hard on its sequel. He's recently shared that he is working on the screenplays of two follow-up films - one in English and the other in Korean. In the podcast The Director's Cut, the talented 51-year-old director and screenwriter revealed that he was at least partly finished.

"It feels like I’m splitting my brain in half left and right writing these two scripts. But I finished one last week. The Korean film is located in Seoul and has unique elements of horror and action. The English project is a drama film based on a true event that happened in 2016. Of course, I won’t know until I finish the script, but it has to be set half in the UK and half in the US. Of course, I won't know the details until I've finished the screenplay."

In addition to the film sequel, Pong Chun-ho is cooperating with Adam McKay on a television series Parasite, which aims to explore some of the ideas that haven't been included in the Oscar screenplay.

Bold skyscrapers to grow in Toronto

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American-Canadian architect Frank Gehry is the brain behind the project for new, design skyscrapers that will grow up in Canada's most populous city. In less than two weeks, one of the authors of the Prague Dancing House will celebrate his 92nd birthday. However, even his venerable age hasn't deterred him from delving into new projects. One of them is a duo of skyscrapers at the intersection of King Street West and Ed Mirvish Way in Toronto. Their construction was approved in 2017, and impressive visualizations of this construction have now been made public. The taller of the skyscrapers should exceed a height of 300 meters and the lower of the two should be 266 meters high. The Canadians can look forward to a pair of glossy revolving skyscrapers, which confirm Gehry's fondness for unusual shapes that attract attention from a distance and at first sight.

One of these high-rise buildings will be home to a hotel and residential apartments, the other will boast an art gallery and a new campus of Canada's largest art and design university, OCAD. Gehry himself commented on the impressive structure:

"I wanted to create an ensemble of buildings that were respectful to the city and referential to the Toronto that I once knew. I wanted the two towers to each have their own personality, but I also wanted them to talk to each other, creating a dynamic and changing addition to the skyline depending on where you were viewing them from in the city. I believe Toronto will be proud of them."

We couldn't fit any more news in today's Early Bird. We wish you a day full of optimism and add a quote from the American writer Charles Bukowski:

"Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside remembering all the times you've felt that way."