| | | | 1. 50 Protesters Die on Myanmar Military’s ‘Day of Shame’ Reports indicate that Burmese security forces fatally shot some 50 demonstrators today on what had been planned to be a celebration of Myanmar’s Armed Forces Day. “Today is a day of shame for the armed forces,” said a spokesperson for a group of lawmakers deposed by the military junta’s Feb. 1 coup. The shootings bring the total deaths reported among anti-coup protesters above 350. They also made all the more hollow Saturday’s remarks by Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the country’s military leader, who said the army sought to “safeguard democracy” and promised to hold elections at an unspecified time. Sources: CNN, Al Jazeera, BBC |
| 2. Story of the Week: Deadly Regularity Their “hearts are broken” and they’ll “fully cooperate” with authorities. So said the owner of the Eagles Nest Armory, 20 miles from Boulder, Colorado, where one of their customers is accused of fatally shooting 10 people Monday with a Ruger AR-556. It’s actually considered a pistol even though it resembles a rifle, so it’s more lightly regulated. While America again agonizes over stricter gun law proposals, authorities in Boulder are struggling to attach a motive to the killings, for which Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa faces 10 counts of first-degree murder and is reportedly being removed to a distant jail because of local death threats against him. Sources: CNN, NBC, USA Today |
| 3. Coming Up: No Water for Voting Rights Last summer, Black voters waited for hours in the Georgia heat to cast ballots. This week, state Republicans made it illegal to give water to people in such lines. The state that just shifted U.S. Senate control to Democrats is the vanguard of 24 states trying to enact numerous restrictions described as securing election integrity amid echoes of widespread 2020 election fraud claims that courts have repudiated. President Joe Biden yesterday called it “Jim Crow in the 21st century,” referencing Southern racial segregation laws, and urged Congress to send him a bill expanding ballot access. Voting rights advocates are already suing to stop Georgia’s law. Sources: NYT, Fox News, BuzzFeed |
| 4. Suez Crisis Shows It’s a Small World After All Able to transport 20,000 cargo containers, the Ever Given occupies an elite class of ship. Now it’s diagonally wedged in Sinai sand, blocking the Suez Canal and hundreds of other ships. As shippers scramble to navigate around Africa, it’s a good time to remember the lesson from early in the pandemic, when Americans realized their masks came from China: This 650-foot-wide corridor’s blockage is reverberating from California to Cambodia, writes New York Times economics correspondent Peter Goodman. Emphasizing manufacturing for immediate needs has revolutionized commerce, but it’s also made the world vulnerable to interruptions, like pandemics and wayward cargo carriers. Sources: NYT |
| | | You're on the worst date of your life. You make an excuse and get out fast, but now who are you going to text? For today's March Matchup from The Carlos Watson Show, which of the NASCAR stars are you calling on to be your getaway driver, Bubba Wallace or Danica Patrick? Watch them on the show and let us know by voting here. |
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| | | | 1. Now It’s Kids’ Turn to Get Shots While children are much safer from the ravages of COVID-19 than their grandparents, at least 268 have died from the disease in the U.S. alone. Add that to their potential to invisibly carry the virus, and the need to vaccinate them becomes clear. But government-approved immunizations have only been proven for adults. That’s why companies including Pfizer and Moderna are now conducting trials on kids, and expect to release results on teenagers soon. And it’s not just in the U.S.: China’s Sinovac is submitting preliminary data showing the vaccine’s safety in children as young as 3 years old. Sources: AP, CNBC |
| 2. When Recycling Poisons a Community It keeps 13 million vehicle batteries out of landfills. But Florida’s Gopher Resource, in extracting lead from those junked automotive components, is poisoning its workforce and the community that surrounds its factory, reports the Tampa Bay Times. In an 18-month investigation, the paper found that workers were exposed to airborne lead hundreds of times the federal safety limit. Some tasks left employees caked in poisonous dust, while a company doctor reportedly obscured lead-caused illnesses. The company denies wrongdoing and says it’s improved conditions, but federal inspectors haven’t checked the plant, which is a half-mile from an elementary school, for lead contamination in seven years. Sources: Tampa Bay Times |
| 3. The Lab Theory Hasn’t Been Eradicated Few want to hear it. But the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 escaped from a Wuhan lab specializing in coronavirus research hasn’t been disproven. On Friday, former CDC director Robert Redfield called it the pandemic’s “most likely” cause, echoing some experts and investigative journalists in noting that such accidents — even in U.S. facilities — aren’t as unusual as believed. The World Health Organization, whose investigators favor the animal-to-human theory, has issued conflicting signals, while authorities in China haven’t helped by withholding data from the earliest COVID-19 cases. What’s clear is that until another infection route is proven, suspicions will persist. Sources: Axios, USA Today, MIT Technology Review |
| 4. How the Web Squeezes Musicians Anyone with talent can show it off on YouTube. But what happens after that? The American Prospect editor David Dayen argues that the world’s largest music streamer has a special algorithm to police bootleg recordings, but little guys need not apply. Once a new act earns a following and might blossom, its only choice is to sign away a cut of every revenue source, from streaming to live performances. And if you don’t rate on Billboard, streaming service playlists won’t expose your music to new listeners, who have fewer and fewer alternative weeklies or local radio stations to expose them to something new. Sources: The American Prospect |
| 5. Justices to Hear College Athlete Income CaseFor amateur sports leagues, they make a lot of money. With top college football and basketball programs pulling in billions of dollars a year and some coaches earning millions, players want more than just scholarships. On Wednesday, lawyers for the NCAA will try to convince the Supreme Court that a lower court erred in ruling their refusal to pay players is anticompetitive. You’ll see that courtside during March Madness, where players are protesting their status with #NotNCAAProperty. The justices, who must decide if limits NCAA and member institutions place on athlete compensation are illegal restrictions of trade, are expected to rule on the case in June. Sources: Vox, Reuters |
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