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IMPORTANT
| | | | Lame Duck | Zelenskyy Tells UN Security Council to Boot Russia — Or ‘Dissolve’Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave an impassioned speech to the United Nations Security Council yesterday, demanding Russia’s removal from the group. Since Russia is a permanent member with veto powers, he said it must be stopped from “blocking decisions about its own aggression, its own war.” Zelenskyy reminded members that the opening chapter of the U.N. charter aims to maintain peace, but it has been violated by Russia “literally starting with Article 1.” He ended with a warning: “If your current format is unalterable and there is simply no way out, then the only option would be to dissolve yourself altogether.” (Source: NPR) |
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| | Ivanka Speaks | Trump’s Daughter Gives 8-Hour Testimony About Jan. 6 Attack Ivanka Trump, who served as senior adviser to her father, former President Donald Trump, testified yesterday before the House committee investigating the Capitol riot. While the interviews were held in secret, sources said the former first daughter — unlike other witnesses — didn’t invoke executive privilege or the Fifth Amendment and broadly answered the panel’s questions. She was one of several aides who tried to persuade the president to call off the violence that resulted in seven deaths and injured more than 150 police officers. Days earlier, her husband and fellow adviser Jared Kushner gave “valuable” information to the committee. (Source: NYT) |
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| | Lockdown Blues | All 26 Million Shanghai Residents Under Indefinite Lockdown As COVID-19 cases surge in Shanghai — 311 new symptomatic cases and more than 16,000 asymptomatic infections were reported yesterday — the city has imposed China’s harshest lockdown yet. What started off on March 28 as a “staggered” suburb-by-suburb lockdown has evolved into a citywide shutdown with no confirmed end date. Residents are only allowed to leave their homes to test for COVID (and those who test positive are transferred to government-run quarantine facilities), and they are reliant on government food deliveries to eat. Some have even resorted to using ropes to lower their dogs from apartment windows to let them poop. (Sources: Al Jazeera, The Guardian) |
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| | More Sanctions | After Bucha, Western Allies Ramp Up Russia Sanctions In retaliation for the atrocities committed against Ukrainian civilians in the devastated Kyiv suburb, the U.S., the G-7 and the EU have introduced fresh sanctions that kick in today. The restrictions target Moscow banks and officials and ban new investments in Russia. Proposed EU sanctions, meanwhile, would ban buying Russian coal and prevent the country’s ships from entering EU ports. In a notable change of stance, Germany’s foreign minister said the coal ban was the first step toward an embargo on all Russian fossil fuel imports. Germany had previously insisted such a ban would harm Europe more than it would Russia. (Sources: Reuters, DW) |
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| | Briefly | Here are some things you should know about today: Castillo’s curfew. Peruvian President Pedro Castillo has imposed a curfew in Lima and Callao following nationwide protests over rising fuel and fertilizer prices. (Source: BBC) Going bananas. Nearly three tons of cocaine hydrochloride, hidden in boxes of bananas, were seized by British border officials on March 17. The seizure, with a street value of almost $400 million, is the U.K.'s biggest cocaine bust since 2015. (Source: Sky News) Stiff penalty. A Nigerian court has sentenced an atheist to 24 years in prison for making social media posts it found to be blasphemous against Islam. (Source: Al Jazeera) |
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INTRIGUING
| | | | Long Overdue | Darwin’s Notebooks Returned to Library After 20 Years Two of Charles Darwin’s notebooks, which include the father of evolution’s 1837 “Tree of Life” sketch, have been returned to Cambridge University’s library two decades after they went missing and 18 months after they were declared stolen. The notebooks, worth millions of dollars, were left in a public area of the library that’s not covered by security cameras. They’d been covered in plastic wrap and placed in a pink gift bag with a note: “Librarian Happy Easter X.” Cambridge’s director of library services Jessica Gardner said her relief was “profound and almost impossible to adequately express.” Police investigations are ongoing. (Source: AP) |
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| | Nosedive | Bird Populations in Panama’s Rainforest PlummetClimate breakdown and habitat loss are likely factors in severe bird population declines in a protected forest in central Panama, according to a new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. University of Illinois scientists used data from twice-yearly surveys between 1977 and 2020 to draw some alarming conclusions. Of 57 species surveyed, 35 lost more than 50% of their initial abundance and only two increased in abundance. The declines extended across different bird families and were generally independent of ecological traits such as body mass and foraging type. Next steps? Intensive long-term studies to identify “the underlying ecological mechanisms.” (Source: The Guardian) |
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| | Third Wave | Microsoft Study Identifies Third Work Peak Between 9 and 10 PMCOVID claims another victim. A study published by Microsoft last week showed that about a third of “knowledge workers” (people who use computers) spend an hour tapping at their keyboards in the late evening. Pre-pandemic surveys identified two productivity peaks in the workday: one shortly before lunch and another just after lunch. The late-evening peak is piffling compared to these Everests, but it does point to the chaos of the post-pandemic workday. It also tallies with other Microsoft findings: The average workday has expanded by 13% since March 2020, and after-hours work has increased by a quarter. (Source: The Atlantic) |
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| | No One Likes a Bully | Not Even Dwarf Mongooses: The Social Animals Shun Aggressors Africa’s smallest carnivore lives in “businesses” of between 5 and 30 individuals and relies heavily on cooperation to get by. Scientists from the University of Bristol who’ve been studying dwarf mongooses in South Africa since 2011 used recordings of specific individuals’ calls to simulate bullying events. While there was no immediate reaction from the group, the mongooses groomed the perceived aggressors less in the evening. Bonaventura Majolo, a professor of social evolution who wasn’t involved in the research, says such studies “are important for understanding social evolution and … for making inferences about human evolution.” (Source: The Scientist) |
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| | Admitting Defeat | Russia Drops Appeal Against Soccer World Cup Ban The Football Union of Russia has withdrawn its appeal against the team’s suspension from the FIFA World Cup. Russia had been due to face Poland in a qualifying match in March, but in light of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the Poles instead received a bye to face Sweden. Russia is adopting a more Putinesque stance to bans from other sporting competitions, filing appeals against its suspensions from international gymnastics, rugby, rowing and skating events. Wimbledon organizers, meanwhile, are considering a ban of Russian and Belorussian tennis players — with world No. 2 Daniil Medvedev being the most notable potential omission. (Sources: BBC, Reuters, Sky Sports) |
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COMMUNITY
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