The Full Belmonte, 3/23/2024
”Senate Reaches Deal to Fund Government, but Misses Midnight Deadline - The House earlier passed $1.2 trillion bill to keep government funded over GOP conservatives’ objections.” [Wall Street Journal]
Chaos threatens GOP majority
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
“House Republicans left for Easter recess with their base enraged, their majority in tatters — and their speaker facing the prospect of a humiliating ouster by his own MAGA allies, Axios' Zachary Basu, Juliegrace Brufke and Andrew Solender report.
Why it matters: Two more early resignations cut the party's margin so thin that some are suggesting it's within the realm of possibility for the House majority to flip to Democrats mid-Congress.
Dysfunction doesn't even begin to cover it. In a matter of hours:
The Republican-led House passed a spending bill to avert a government shutdown and sent it to the Senate — with more than half the House GOP conference, including many furious hardliners, voting against it.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) — one of those hardliners angry at Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) for helping push the bill — introduced a motion to vacate the chair, calling for Johnson's removal. Her move threatens to trigger the same type of vote that ended the career of his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy.
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), retiring chair of the House China Select Committee, announced suddenly he'll leave Congress next month — leaving Republicans with an astonishing majority of just one seat.
Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), who also is retiring early, departed for the final time — but not before signing a Democratic petition to force a vote on Ukraine aid, dealing one last blow to the GOP leadership he detested.
House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-Ky.) — who helped make impeaching President Biden one of the GOP majority's top priorities — indicated his fizzling inquiry will end without a vote.
Behind the scenes: ‘Normally they're trying to talk people out of [retiring],’ one House Republican told Axios. ‘Now we're at a point where we're trying to talk them out of leaving early.’
One conservative told Axios: ‘Coming on the heels of the speaker's cave on the [spending bills], Gallagher's abandonment of his colleagues mid-fight is a real gut punch.’
The other side: Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said that Gallagher timing his resignation to ensure his seat would go unfilled until November is another ‘sharp rebuke to the chaos-and-cannibalism caucus.’
The bottom line: Amid yesterday's chaos, disgraced former Rep. George Santos announced he's leaving the Republican Party to run for Congress in New York as an independent — saying the GOP is too ‘embarrassing.’” [Axios]
Greene threatens to throw House back into chaos with threat to oust Speaker Johnson
BY MYCHAEL SCHNELL AND MIKE LILLIS
© Greg Nash
“The House may be headed for chaos — again.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) new bid to oust Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) sent shockwaves through Washington on Friday, infuriating many Republicans who are scrambling to unite ahead of November’s elections, while threatening to throw the House — and especially the GOP conference — into a state of spring mayhem.”
Read the full story here at The Hill
Republicans lash out at Greene over threat to oust Speaker Johnson
BY MYCHAEL SCHNELL AND MIKE LILLIS
“House Republicans are lashing out at Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) over her surprise bid to remove Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) from power, warning that it threatens to divide an already warring GOP conference ahead of elections when the House is up for grabs.
Greene told reporters she is not bringing her motion to vacate resolution to the floor immediately — ‘I don’t have a timeline’ — but the mere idea of removing another Speaker has infuriated many fellow Republicans, who are aiming their fire at Greene.”
Read the full story here at The Hill
Russia detains 11 in concert attack
People line up to donate blood this morning to help victims of the attack in Crocus City Hall. Photo: Denis Voronin/Moscow News Agency via AP
“At least 115 people have been killed after gunmen burst into a big concert hall in Moscow, opened fire and set the venue ablaze. Russian authorities have arrested 11 people in connection to the attack, including the four suspected gunmen.
The Islamic State took responsibility for yesterday's attack, a claim the U.S. confirmed, Axios' Jacob Knutson and Shauneen Miranda write.
Some Russian officials tried to blame Ukraine. Ukraine called that ‘absurd.’
Zoom in: U.S. intelligence had warned Russia of a ‘planned terrorist attack’ in Moscow ‘potentially targeting large gatherings’ earlier this month, NSC spokesperson Adrienne Watson said.
The U.S. embassy in Russia had warned American citizens in Moscow to avoid large crowds on March 7.
Zoom out: The attack comes just days after Russian President Vladimir Putin solidified his rule over the country for the remainder of this decade and into the 2030s.” [Axios]
“It was a big week for central banks, replete with surprises, told-you-so’s and new projections about where monetary policy is headed the world over. The Swiss National Bank, citing progress on inflation, became the first among global peers to cut interest rates while Norway signaled no such move was in the offing for at least another six months. As expected, the Bank of Japan ended its negative interest rate regime, the world’s last. The radical policymaking tool had been adopted to encourage bank lending, spur demand and stem disinflation. In Africa, central banks in the continent’s biggest economies, including Egypt and Kenya, are set to part ways with emerging-markets in Latin America and Europe as they maintain tight monetary policies to contend with sticky inflation.
In the US, the Federal Reserve kept rates unchanged at 5.25% to 5.5% as policymakers maintained their projections for three rate cuts this year if inflation continues its retreat. But after a couple of bumps on the path back to 2%, there’s a chance the Fed could drop one of those cuts. Fed Chair Jerome Powell said it will be appropriate to start slowing the Fed’s quantitative tightening program ‘fairly soon.’ An important complement to rate hikes in tighter monetary policy, QT is currently removing liquidity from the US financial system to the tune of up to $95 billion a month. Officials are determined to stop it before it causes the kind of financial disruptions experienced before the last round ended some five years ago.
What you’ll want to read this weekend
US President Joe Biden is maintaining a significant fundraising advantage over presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, who is running out of campaign money he can tap for legal fees. The twice-impeached former president’s properties in New York, including this golf club in Westchester County, may also be in jeopardy: the state’s attorney general said she will begin seizing properties if Trump can’t post a bond on the $454 million judgement levied against him for fraud. The stakes are high for his business empire as Trump campaigns to return to the White House. He has urged the US Supreme Court to declare him immune from prosecution for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection, as his lawyers move on multiple fronts to push the four criminal trials he faces—all of which have been subject to delays—beyond the November election.
Israel will invade the crowded southern Gaza city of Rafah ‘even if the entire world turns on Israel, including the United States,’ said Ron Dermer, the nation’s strategic affairs minister and a confidante of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Still, Dermer and other Israeli officials will travel to the US to hear the Biden administration’s concerns, including what the United Nations has warned is a looming famine in northern Gaza. In the leaders’ first call in more than a month, Biden warned Netanyahu that invading Rafah, where more than a million displaced Gazans have fled, would be a mistake, leading to more civilian deaths and worsening the already dire humanitarian situation.
Palestinians sift through the rubble of an Israeli air strike on March 20 in Rafah, southern Gaza. Photographer: Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images Europe
CRE commercial loan obligations—the ‘first shoe to drop’ in commercial real estate debt—are facing unprecedented stress. Blackstone President John Gray says it’s a good time to move fast and buy real estate assets at beat-down prices. Then there’s the residential market: Baltimore introduced a plan to sell boarded-up houses for $1 each to people who commit to fixing them up. Chicago’s historic Gold Coast has lost some of its more wealthy residents, such as Citadel’s Ken Griffin, in part because of high taxes. And the National Association of Realtors agreed to pay $418 million in damages to settle litigation over commission rules for real estate agents, a case that will change the landscape for buyers and sellers. While the damages are hefty, they are “a welcome disruption at a time of woeful housing affordability,” Conor Sen writes in Bloomberg Opinion.
Big tech has been on a tear this year, with a notable exception. Apple fell the most since August after the Justice Department and 16 attorneys generals sued, accusing the gadget maker of violating antitrust laws and suppressing competition by blocking rivals from accessing hardware and software features on its popular devices. Apple and Alphabet’s Google also are set to face full-blown European Union investigations into their compliance with a new law reining in the power of Big Tech.” [Bloomberg]
Corruption Allegations in New Delhi
Supporters of the Aam Aadmi Party protest the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in New Delhi on March 22.Arun Sankar/AFP
“India’s federal investigative agency arrested opposition leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday for suspected financial crimes. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accused Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) of accepting 1 billion rupees (or $12 million) in bribes from liquor contractors after New Delhi implemented a new liquor law in 2022 that ended government control over alcohol sales in the capital. The policy has since been scrapped.
The AAP claims there is no evidence of wrongdoing, arguing that the allegations are part of a BJP-led effort to weaken the opposition before general elections begin on April 19. The BJP controls the government that oversees the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which arrested Kejriwal. ‘This is dictatorship. All this is done to win the national polls,’ said Delhi Health Minister and AAP member Saurabh Bharadwaj.
Kejriwal has ignored nine ED summonses thus far, saying he feared he would be arrested if he appeared for questioning. He denounced the agency’s charges as ‘generic’ and ‘illegal,’ and he sought legal protection from arrest. Last year, federal authorities arrested Kejriwal’s deputy, Manish Sisodia, and AAP lawmaker Sanjay Singh on charges related to the same case. With Kejriwal’s arrest, the AAP’s top leaders are now behind bars.
The BJP continues to deny any political interference. But India’s 27-party opposition alliance, which the AAP is part of, has accused the BJP and its leader, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, of using graft allegations against major opponents such as Kejriwal as part of a political smear campaign.
‘The arrest of elected chief ministers has become a common thing,’ opposition Indian National Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi wrote on X, formerly Twitter. Money-laundering allegations have targeted the chief ministers of at least three southern Indian states, and the BJP froze the Congress party’s bank accounts on Thursday as part of an alleged tax dispute.
Many of the BJP’s actions, including ‘the selective use of the Enforcement Directorate to target the Opposition and protect its own,’ are designed to ‘consolidate a pervasive culture of fear,’ Indian political scientist Pratap Bhanu Mehta wrote. Still, Mehta added, Kejriwal’s arrest was ‘an unprecedented display of impunity.’
Kejriwal was placed in custody on Friday until March 28. Hundreds of AAP supporters clashed with police across the country to protest his arrest, and authorities detained dozens of party members in New Delhi. Kejriwal’s lawyers said they plan to fight the allegations in city court before they potentially petition India’s Supreme Court.” [Foreign Policy]
“Failed U.N. vote. Russia and China vetoed a U.S.-drafted United Nations Security Council resolution on Friday that expressed support for an ‘immediate and sustained cease-fire’ in Gaza alongside ‘the release of all remaining hostages’ and the delivery of more humanitarian aid. Algeria also voted against the measure, and Guyana abstained. This was the fourth failed U.N. resolution demanding a halt in fighting between Israel and Hamas since the war began on Oct. 7, 2023. Washington vetoed the first three resolutions.
Russia and China cited the resolution’s ambiguous language as a reason for their veto. Rather than explicitly ‘calling for’ or ‘demanding’ a cease-fire, as past resolutions have, the U.S.-drafted text said the Security Council ‘determines the imperative of an immediate and sustained cease-fire.’ Russia’s ambassador to the U.N. denounced the resolution as an ‘empty rhetorical exercise’ written to favor U.S. political interests and ‘ensure the impunity of Israel,’ while China’s U.N. ambassador accused the United States of having ‘played a game of words while being ambiguous and evasive on critical issues.’
Moscow and Beijing ‘simply did not want to vote for a resolution that was penned by the United States, because it would rather see us fail than to see this council succeed,’ said Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
On Saturday, the Security Council’s 10 nonpermanent members plan to present their own cease-fire resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began on March 10, as well as the ‘immediate and unconditional’ release of all hostages. Washington said it may veto the text.” [Foreign Policy]
“Dakar’s upcoming vote. Senegalese head to the polls on Sunday to select the West African nation’s next president in a contest rife with voting delays, violent protests, and political arrests. This is the first time in Senegal’s history that an incumbent will not be on the ballot. Outgoing President Macky Sall initially delayed the vote, which had been scheduled for Feb. 25, until the end of 2024—a move that his opponents argued was to help solidify his hold on power. But Sall reversed course earlier this month amid widespread public discontent and a constitutional council decision.
Nineteen candidates are in the running. Sall and his ruling Benno Bokk Yakaar party endorsed former Prime Minister Amadou Ba. But opposition leader Bassirou Diomaye Faye remains a front-runner. Faye and popular opposition leader Ousmane Sonko were released from prison last week after facing legal challenges that some argued were politically motivated. Sonko remains barred from running for president over a previous conviction.” [Foreign Policy]
“Greenlighting negotiations. European Union leaders agreed on Thursday to open accession talks with Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, they urged Sarajevo to continue taking ‘all relevant steps’ toward political, economic, and judicial reform. ‘Your place is in our European family,’ European Council President Charles Michel wrote on X.
Bosnia and Herzegovina achieved membership candidate status in 2022, but Russia’s war in Ukraine and Sarajevo’s failure to meet certain requirements for joining the EU stalled its accession. Sarajevo continues to suffer ethnic divisions, including from separatist Bosnian Serbs, following a devastating war and genocide in the 1990s.” [Foreign Policy]
Today's London papers. Photo: Stefan Rousseau/PA Images via Getty Images
“A headline on today's Daily Mail cover: ‘How do all those vile online trolls feel now?’
Many publicly apologized for joking about Princess Kate's whereabouts before she announced her cancer diagnosis yesterday. Actress Blake Lively, who edited a photo riffing on the photoshopped image of the princess, said she felt ‘mortified’ for her ‘silly’ post on Instagram.” [Axios]
Smoky Midwest
Data: IQAir. Chart: Kavya Beheraj/Axios
“The U.S. cities with the worst air quality in 2023 — mostly in the Midwest — had particle pollution levels two to three times higher than what the World Health Organization recommends, Axios' Jacob Knutson writes from a new report.
Why it matters: Air pollution is the world's leading environmental health threat, causing 6.7 million premature deaths every year, WHO estimates.
Zoom in: It's not coincidental that the cities with the worst air quality last year were in the Upper Midwest and Mid-Atlantic, as those regions were smothered in smoke from Canada's unprecedented wildfire season.
What we're watching: After decades of progress, air quality in the U.S. is expected to steadily deteriorate over the coming decades as climate change causes more large wildfires, heat waves and drought.
Most U.S. cities had levels one to two times higher than WHO guidelines, while pockets of the West met the guidelines.” [Axios]
Charted: Happy boomers
Data: World Happiness Report. Chart: Erin Davis/Axios Visuals
“Older Americans are among the happiest people in the world, coming in 10th on Gallup's worldwide happiness rankings.
The young, meanwhile, rank 62nd.
Why it matters: This all comes down to connecting with others — Americans 60+ are less lonely and feel more socially connected than their younger peers, Axios' Emily Peck reports.
They're also doing great financially.
The big picture: Researchers have long pointed out that old age is generally a lot better than you may think. Psychological well-being plays out over a lifetime in a U-curve, according to a widely cited study from 2008.
It typically starts high in youth, plummets during the stresses of middle age and then picks back up around age 56.
What we're watching: The U.S. is losing its U shape. Younger Americans aren't doing well right now. Rates of anxiety, depression and suicide have significantly increased.” [Axios]
Kids are dying inside
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
“A shocking number of American kids are sad, suicidal and stuck on small screens sucking away their zest for life.
Why it matters: This is the indisputable and alarming trend among American children, based on the latest polling and deep research by a prominent social psychologist in a book out next week.
The startling data: Rates of depression and anxiety among American adolescents jumped by more than 50% in multiple studies between 2010 and 2019, writes Jonathan Haidt, a leading expert on the spike in teen mental illness. Those numbers were relatively stable in the 2000s.
The suicide rate for kids between 10 and 14 tripled between 2007 and 2021, according to the CDC.
The share of high school girls who seriously considered attempting suicide jumped from 19% in 2011 to 30% in 2021.
Three events are bringing the crisis into sharper focus: the release of the annual World Happiness Report, the congressional debate over TikTok and next Tuesday's release of Haidt's book, "The Anxious Generation."
Data: National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Chart: Axios Visuals
The big picture: The pandemic is often cited as a driver of the teen mental health crisis. But it was brewing long before then, Axios' Erica Pandey writes.
A growing body of research links the acceleration of the crisis to one of this century's biggest events: the arrival of the smartphone.
‘Smartphones and social media fundamentally changed the way teens spend their time outside of school,’ says Jean Twenge, a psychologist and author of the book "Generations."
Zoom in: In study after study, teens say social media is making them stressed and depressed. But the time they're spending online keeps rising.
In the early 2000s, middle- and high-school kids saw friends in person about three times a week. Now, that's closer to 1.5, according to data from the University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future project.
At the same time, screen time has skyrocketed. Teens spend an average of 4.8 hours every day on social media apps, including TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat, according to Gallup.
For the first time, the U.S. fell out of the top 20 in the World Happiness Report, released Tuesday. Gallup cited ‘Americans under 30 feeling worse about their lives’ for the steep drop.” [Axios]
TikTok's addictive algorithm
Data: Pew Research Center. Chart: Alice Feng/Axios
“American teens — by a large margin — use YouTube more than TikTok. But they're more likely to scroll through the ByteDance-owned app ‘almost constantly,’ according to Pew Research Center polling.
Why it matters: The stat points to how addictive and unhealthy TikTok's endless feed of videos can be for teens.
Zoom in: There's suddenly a roaring national debate over fears about teens' privacy, their data security — and all the misinformation going straight to their phones.
Citing national security concerns, Congress is pushing to force the platform's Chinese parent company to sell TikTok or face a ban.
A ban — though unlikely anytime soon — would force a massive shift in how millions of Americans spend their time.
‘It's of course possible that people will replace TikTok time with YouTube time or Instagram time,’ psychologist Jean Twenge says. ‘However, TikTok's algorithm is particularly effective at getting you to spend more time on it.’
Between the lines: A study from the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that new TikTok accounts were shown self-harm and eating disorder content within minutes of scrolling.
Suicide-related videos popped up within 2.6 minutes.
Eating disorder content popped up in 8 minutes.
Reality check: It's not just TikTok. Teen mental health started to plummet years before the app launched in 2016.
Top social media companies say they've made efforts to curb the crisis.
Asked for comment by Axios, TikTok pointed to community guidelines that say: ‘We do not allow content that may put young people at risk of exploitation, or psychological, physical, or developmental harm.’
A YouTube spokesperson passed along blogs explaining the platform's ‘expert-backed approaches to eating disorder content and limiting certain types of recommendations.’
Meta said it has ‘well over 30 tools we have released’ to help parents and teens manage Instagram and Facebook.” [Axios]
Risky behaviors plummet
Data: CDC. (1997 data not available.) Chart: Axios Visuals
“For better or worse, high schoolers are participating in significantly less risky behavior than they were three decades ago, Axios' Noah Bressner writes.
Why it matters: Studies show that Gen Z is more shy than millennials.
Almost every frowned-upon activity has taken a hit among high schoolers, according to the CDC's latest Youth Risk Behavior Survey, from 2021.
About 23% of high schoolers said they drank alcohol in the last month — down from 48% in 1993.
The percentage of students who said they've ever had sex was down 23 points.
In 1993, almost 42% of students reported being in a physical fight in the last year. That's down to 18%.” [Axios]
THE WEEK IN CULTURE
Film and TV
Atlanta, 1997. Jean Shifrin/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, via Associated Press
“‘Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told,’ an HBO documentary, delves into an event that defined spring break for Black college students in the 1980s and 1990s.
The characters in “3 Body Problem,” a new show from the makers of “Game of Thrones,” lack dimension, but the series’ scale ‘may leave you too starry-eyed to notice,’ James Poniewozik writes in his review.
A third — and final — ‘Downton Abbey’ movie is on the way, the actress Imelda Staunton told the BBC.
A documentary detailed accounts of a problematic working environment at Nickelodeon. Dan Schneider, a former longtime producer accused of inappropriate behavior, apologized.
Art
An investigation by The Guardian found that three Damien Hirst sculptures, which his company had dated to the 1990s, were actually made in 2017 by Hirst’s employees.
Last year, a professor’s 30-year dream of assembling a complete set of Katsushika Hokusai’s series “Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji” was realized. This week, the prints went up for auction.
Music
The cast and chorus of the Met Opera’s production of Puccini’s “Turandot” sang from an improvised set after a technical glitch.
Shakira’s latest album, “Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran,” deals with her divorce. ‘If life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. That’s what I did with this album,’ she told The Times.
‘Wait, was that Lil Nas X?’ The rapper joined the New York City half marathon at the last minute.
Fashion
Nadja Wohlleben/Reuters; Getty Images
Kristen Stewart has embraced “naked dressing.” The bare looks confront viewers with ideas of female sexuality while ‘undermining the whole circus of branded celebrity dressing,’ Vanessa Friedman writes.
South Dakota’s governor, Kristi Noem, has undergone a total makeover in recent years. Strategists say that her new, more glamorous look is meant to appeal to Donald Trump.
The Belgian designer Dries Van Noten announced his retirement from his namesake brand. Men’s wear aficionados are in mourning.
More Culture
The “Succession” actor Jeremy Strong stars in a Broadway revival of Henrik Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People.” Our critic attended a preview.
A new Banksy mural in London — painted behind a cherry tree that had its branches sawed off — was defaced, NPR reports.
Jonathan Eig won a prize from the New-York Historical Society for his biography of Martin Luther King Jr.” [New York Times]
Monument to freedom
Freedom Monument Sculpture Park. Photo: Courtesy of the Equal Justice Initiative
“A new monument and sculpture park honoring 10 million enslaved Black people in America is opening next week in Montgomery, Ala., Axios' Russell Contreras writes.
Why it matters: The Freedom Monument Sculpture Park and National Monument to Freedom will be the closest structure the U.S. has to a national monument to the victims of enslavement.
It comes as some states have passed new bills limiting the discussion of slavery in public schools.
The National Monument to Freedom. Photo: Courtesy of the Equal Justice Initiative
The National Monument to Freedom, standing 43 feet tall and 155 feet long, sits at the end of the park.
It uses research from the 1870 Census — the first time formerly enslaved Black people were able to formally record a surname — to list over 122,000 surnames that nearly five million Black people adopted at the time.” [Axios]
Sign of the times: DoorDash by drone
DoorDash is partnering with Alphabet's Wing to deliver food from Wendy's, starting in Christiansburg, Va. Photo: Wing
“DoorDash's delivery fleet now includes drones, which means your takeout order could arrive faster and with less environmental impact.
Why it matters: Drone delivery is expanding rapidly in the U.S., satisfying Americans' thirst for instant gratification while reducing road congestion and pollution, Axios' Joann Muller writes.
State of play: DoorDash is partnering with Alphabet's Wing to begin drone delivery of Wendy's burgers and fries in Christiansburg, Virginia.
Customers with an eligible address will be able to order DoorDash via drone from the Wendy's restaurant at 2355 N. Franklin Street.” [Axios]
Busted brackets
Yale guard Yassine Gharram stands on a table after celebrating with fans. Photo: Ted S. Warren/AP
“Upset of the night: 13-seeded Yale stunned No. 4 seed Auburn, 78–76, in Spokane, Wash., yesterday. It was only Yale's second NCAA tournament win in program history.
It was one of the surprises that busted many of the more than 22 million brackets entered in ESPN's Tournament Challenge. After No. 13 Yale, No. 14 Oakland and No. 11 Duquesne beat tournament favorites No. 4 Auburn, No. 3 Kentucky and No. 6 BYU, respectively, just 3 perfect brackets were left.
Late last night, 12-seeded James Madison University's 72–61 defeat of No. 5 Wisconsin toppled those last 3.
Photo: Dylan Widger/USA Today Sports
Above: Iowa State Cyclones guard Keshon Gilbert dunks on South Dakota State Jackrabbits guard Zeke Mayo in a first-round game yesterday in Omaha. No. 2 seed Iowa State buried South Dakota, 82-65.” [Axios]
RIP Stumpy
Stumpy the mascot dances near Stumpy the cherry tree at the Tidal Basin in Washington on Tuesday. Photo: Nathan Ellgren/AP
“Stumpy — a short, hollow cherry blossom tree — will soon be uprooted from its home in D.C.'s Tidal Basin, Axios D.C. co-author Mimi Montgomery reports.
Stumpy has developed a cult fandom around the D.C. area, a beloved misfit among the rows of stately trees.
Why Stumpy mattered: Stumpy looks this way because too much water can hurt a tree's roots, and the Tidal Basin floods twice a day now due to its sinking seawall and climate change.
Several trees are being removed to accommodate the construction of a new seawall. 274 new cherry trees will be planted to replace them.” [Axios]
Happy Holi!
”It's time for the most colorful festival of the year! The Hindu festival of Holi is March 25, when people in India and across the world celebrate love and the brightness of spring with colorful powders commonly called gulal. Though the powders can be natural or artificial, the natural versions are often made of well-known minerals and spices, like indigo and turmeric. A large part of the festival focuses on ancient legends that tell of the triumph of good over evil. And, of course, there's plenty of music and food to go around.”
Read the whole story here at CNN
Photo: Courtesy Helen Wright
Lookin' dapper
”A pair of eight-year-olds at Chelsea Elementary in Maine started a very cool new trend that's all about being yourself. It's called ‘Dapper Wednesdays,’ and every week, people who want to join in dress to the nines for a fashion-filled day. Now, the important thing is that everyone feels good in what they wear. ‘(You can) wear what you want and just say ‘ I don’t care if somebody bullies me. I'm who I can be,’ said student James Ramage. The school's administration loves it and has even started a ‘dapper closet’ so any kid can find something fun to wear.” [CNN]