| |  | Chicago Mayor-elect Lori Lightfoot speaks to supporters after her victory Tuesday. Source: Getty |
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Lori Lightfoot made history yesterday by winning her grassroots campaign to succeed Rahm Emanuel and become the Windy City’s first Black female mayor — as well as Chicago’s first openly gay leader. The 56-year-old former federal prosecutor, who had never held elected office, handily defeated Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, who was tainted by a recent corruption scandal.
What will change? As the former head of the Chicago Police Board, Lightfoot has promised to boost training for the force to minimize misconduct.
Read this OZY profile of Pittsburgh’s progressive mayor.
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Prosecutors say they’ve charged Yujing Zhang with two federal crimes after she was arrested Saturday for talking her way into President Donald Trump’s Florida resort. She reportedly claimed she’d traveled from Shanghai to speak with a Trump family member about U.S.-Chinese relations and attend a non-existent U.N. event. Secret Service agents said Zhang was carrying two Chinese passports and a malware-infested thumb drive.
What’s the fallout? Some analysts are raising questions about the threat posed by Mar-a-Lago, which allows private citizens who could compromise security to gain unusually close access to the president.
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“We have won a battle.” That’s how one Algerian reveler described the departure of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who stepped down yesterday amid rolling protests weeks before his current term was set to expire. The ailing 82-year-old had ruled out running in the April 18 election, which has now been postponed, but thousands continued to demand his ouster, while the country’s military chief declared him unfit for office.
Who will be in charge? That’s still unclear, but the governing National Liberation Front is expected to hold a conference to discuss reforms demanded by protesters.
Read this OZY story on Algeria’s provocative cartoons.
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The planemaker and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration are likely to face further scrutiny after The Wall Street Journal reported that the pilots of last month’s doomed Ethiopian Airlines flight followed Boeing’s emergency protocol before crashing. The FAA and Boeing claimed that pilots could avoid catastrophe by manually switching off the electronic stall prevention system, called MCAS, which has been blamed for two crashes in six months.
Is a software fix in the works? Yes — although it could take months before an MCAS update, which would give pilots more control over the system, is finally rolled out and approved by regulators.
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Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó has been stripped of his immunity by lawmakers loyal to embattled President Nicolás Maduro. Brunei has introduced Sharia criminal laws that punish gay sex and adultery with death by stoning. And a group of wealthy parents charged in the recent nationwide college admissions scandal will appear in court today.
#OZYfact: For the third straight season, free-throw shooting in Division 1 college basketball is above 70 percent — the sport’s longest-ever streak. Read more on OZY.
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| INTRIGUING | | 01 |
At least it’s still afloat. The Malaysian government has announced the sale of a 300-foot luxury yacht recovered as a key asset in a $4.5 billion graft scheme that’s gripped the Southeast Asian country. Equipped with a helipad and gilded fittings, the vessel was originally purchased by financier Jho Low for $250 million, and was later seized in Bali.
How high does this scandal go? Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, whose wife has also been charged, went on trial in Kuala Lumpur today on charges that he looted a state development fund.
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Claiming she overstepped her legal bounds by calling his 2016 satirical poem about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan “intentionally hurtful,” late night show host Jan Böhmermann has sued the chancellor and is seeking an injunction. Designed to test a German law banning insults against foreign leaders, his poem prompted a demand from Erdoğan himself to investigate the comedian. A Berlin court will deliver a verdict April 16.
Can he win? It’s possible: German prosecutors reviewed the poem in court, which Böhmermann said amounted to a pre-trial, and Parliament has since struck down the law in question.
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He’s a high flyer. Oxford professor and former British paragliding champion Adrian Thomas designs biologically inspired drones, such as the pen-sized, dragonfly-like “Skeeter” currently being beta-tested for military reconnaissance, OZY reports. While his startup, Animal Dynamics, has contracts with the British military, Thomas rules out weaponizing his products — instead favoring international regulations for autonomous weapons.
What’s next? Experts say flapping-wing drone technology could take 10 years to mature, but when it does, these recon robots could scour collapsed buildings after earthquakes and monitor farms like bees.
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Authorities in Los Angeles have arrested a 29-year-old suspect in Sunday’s shooting death of the Grammy-nominated rapper. Police Chief Michael Moore said the incident arose from a personal dispute and was not gang related. Meanwhile, as hundreds of mourners gathered at the crime scene Monday, someone carrying a gun caused a panic that resulted in multiple injuries.
How is Hussle being remembered? The 33-year-old, who was due to meet Moore and the police commissioner on Monday about ways to stop gang violence, has been widely praised for investing in his community.
Read OZY’s profile of the female rapper trading verses with Kendrick Lamar.
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League owner Tom Dundon has abruptly called it quits just eight weeks into the AAF’s inaugural season, reportedly leaving players on the road to pay for their own travel home. Plagued with issues from the start, the league that aimed to funnel talent to the NFL couldn’t work out an agreement with the NFL Players Association to share athletes, and weekly viewership hovered around 500,000.
Have we seen the last of the AAF? It’s apparently seeking investors for a potential “season two” — but if nothing else, the league left its mark with innovative app-based technology that let fans track players’ biometric data.
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Rising Stars
Fromer British paragliding champ Adrian Thomas is behind some of the most thrilling, and unsettling, tech out there.
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