Debris is littered yesterday along the shoreline off Cabrillo Monument in San Diego. Photo: Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images
“A packed boat being used in a suspected human smuggling operation broke apart in powerful surf off Point Loma, along the rocky San Diego coast, killing three people and hospitalizing 27 others, AP reports.
Border Patrol agents went to hospitals to interview survivors.
The context: ‘Human and drug smugglers increasingly turned to the Pacific Ocean in recent years as the Trump administration tightened border infrastructure on land,’ The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.” Read more at Axios
“The Environmental Protection Agency will propose on Monday a rule aiming to sharply cut the use and production of a class of powerful greenhouse gases used widely in refrigeration and air conditioning. The proposal marks the first time President Biden’s administration has used the power of the federal government to mandate a cut in climate pollution.
Unlike many of the administration’s other climate initiatives, there’s broad bipartisan support for curbing hydrofluorocarbons, pollutants thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide at warming the planet. Congress agreed at the end of last year to slash the super-pollutants by 85 percent over the next 15 years as part of a broader omnibus bill.
Altogether, a global phase down of hydrofluorocarbons, also known as HFCs, is projected to avert up to 0.5 degree Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming by the end of the century.” Read more at Washington Post
“The US is showing more signs of returning to normal. After a year, two Carnival Cruise ships returned to a Texas port, signaling a glimmer of hope for a cruise industry that has been all but frozen. Disneyland also has reopened for the first time in over a year. However, there’s a new obstacle amid these optimistic signs: The CDC says almost 8% of the millions of people who have gotten a first Covid-19 shot of the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccines haven’t gotten a second one, which is essential to proper protection from the virus. Meanwhile, President Biden has been seen wearing a mask outdoors despite updated CDC guidance that fully vaccinated people don’t have to do so. The ensuing confusion seems to show that mask-wearing will continue to be a controversial topic for a long while.” Read more at CNN
“India is on the brink of recording 20 million coronavirus cases as it continues to buckle under its worst outbreak yet. Authorities also reported more than 400,000 daily cases for the first time on Saturday and a record-high number of deaths yesterday. Multiple states in the country are preparing to go into ‘complete lockdown’ in the coming days. Many have accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of not properly preparing India for the crisis, and he has often painted a rosy view of the nation's pandemic response when numbers were saying otherwise. In an election in a key battleground state, Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party just suffered a defeat, with the results seen as a test of whether the second wave of Covid-19 has impacted support for Modi.” Read more at CNN
“The US began turning over military bases to Afghan security forces this weekend, but Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, the top US general, warned of the potential for ‘bad possible outcomes’ for the withdrawal. Taliban forces late last week briefly overran an Afghan base before Afghan forces recaptured it. Meanwhile, the US carried out a precision strike against rockets aimed at Kandahar Airfield after indirect fire was launched at the site. Milley says the first few days of this withdrawal phase don't indicate the whole project’s success or failure, and a negotiated peace is still possible.” Read more at CNN
“North Korea warned the US it will face a ‘crisis beyond control in the near future’ and accused South Korea of carrying out an ‘intolerable provocation’ against Pyongyang in statements that could set the stage for a showdown among the three countries. The comments come after Biden's press secretary said the administration had completed a monthslong policy review of North Korea. Biden and his South Korean counterpart, Moon Jae-in, are also set to meet in Washington this month, and experts say North Korea may be trying to drive a wedge between the two leaders. The statements also seem focused on what North Korea sees as recent insults from the US and South Korea.” Read more at CNN
“Russia is turning to multiple Chinese firms to manufacture the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in an effort to speed up production as demand soars for its shot.
Russia has announced three deals totaling 260 million doses with Chinese vaccine companies in recent weeks. It’s a decision that could mean quicker access to a shot for countries in Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa that have ordered Russia’s vaccine, as the U.S. and the European Union focus mainly on domestic vaccination needs.
Earlier criticism about Russia’s vaccine have been largely quieted by data published in the British medical journal The Lancet that said large-scale testing showed it to be safe, with an efficacy rate of 91%.
Yet, experts have questioned whether Russia can fulfill its pledge to countries across the world. While pledging hundreds of millions of doses, it has only delivered a fraction.” Read more at AP
“The trial of the three biggest US drug distributors for illegally flooding West Virginia with hundreds of millions of prescription opioid pills, and driving the highest overdose rate in the country, is due to open on Monday.
The city of Huntington and surrounding Cabell county are suing McKesson, AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health, among the largest corporations in the US, as part of a series of federal cases over the pharmaceutical industry’s push to sell narcotic painkillers which created the worst drug epidemic in American history.
The two West Virginia local authorities accuse the distributors of turning Cabell county, with a population of just 90,000, into the ‘ground zero of the opioid epidemic sweeping the nation’, by flooding the area with nearly 100m opioid pills over a decade.
The lawsuit claims the companies put profit before lives by working in concert with ‘pill mill ‘doctors and pharmacists who were little better than drug dealers in supplying opioids to anyone who paid, in breach of laws requiring distributors to halt and report suspicious sales.” Read more at The Guardian
“President Joe Biden’s call for authorizing Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices has energized Democrats on a politically popular idea they’ve been pushing for nearly 20 years only to encounter frustration.
But they still lack a clear path to enact legislation. That’s because a small number of Democrats remain uneasy over government price curbs on pharmaceutical companies.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will need every Democratic vote in a narrowly divided Congress. Otherwise Democrats may have to settle for a compromise that stops short of their goal. Or they could take the issue into the 2022 midterm elections.” Read more at AP
“Rev. Al Sharpton will deliver the eulogy at Monday's funeral for Andrew Brown Jr., who was killed by sheriff’s deputies serving search and arrest warrants at his Elizabeth City home on April 21. Brown, a Black man, was shot five times, including once fatally in the back of his head, according to an autopsy commissioned by his family. Protesters have taken to the streets after a judge ruled against the release of body camera footage from the shooting.” Read more at USA Today
“Verizon Communications, signaling that it has given up on its media business, said on Monday that it agreed to sell Yahoo and AOL to the private equity firm Apollo Global Management for $5 billion.
The sale includes Verizon’s advertising technology business as well, and the company will retain a 10 percent stake in the business, Verizon said in a statement announcing the deal on Monday.
The transaction is the latest turn in the history of two of the internet’s earliest pioneers. Yahoo used to be the front page of the internet, cataloging the furious pace of new websites that sprang up in the late 1990s. AOL was once the service that most people used to get online.
But both were ultimately supplanted by nimbler start-ups, like Google and Facebook, though Yahoo and AOL still publish highly trafficked websites like Yahoo Sports and TechCrunch.” Read more at New York Times
“American jobs are starting to come back, but youth unemployment is still high and many young people are postponing college, Axios' Erica Pandey writes.
Why it matters: Young people across the country are falling behind because of the pandemic, and they will feel the consequences of these months of pain long after the pandemic is over.
Young workers disproportionately lost their jobs as industries in which they're overrepresented, such as hospitality and retail, were hit hard during the pandemic.
Many young people who aren't already in the workforce are delaying education because they don't want to spend the money on remote school, or because their families aren't able to afford it. And many others have graduated but can't find their first jobs.” Read more at Axios
“Part of the Southern Plains, the Ohio Valley, central Appalachians and the middle to lower Mississippi Valley will be under threat of severe thunderstorms and flash flooding Monday and Tuesday as a storm that soaked previously dry regions of Texas over the weekend moves slowly northeast. Rain and strong storms made their way across Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and southern Missouri Sunday evening as the storm made its way through the area. A second weather threat is expected to develop over the Rockies into Monday, delivering wet snow to the higher elevations of Colorado and Wyoming and rain to parts of the northern and central Plains, the National Weather Service said. The fast-moving system will then head toward the Midwest, where cities like Omaha, Nebraska, and Minneapolis will experience temperature dips of up to 15 degrees below the norm for early May.” Read more at USA Today
“A legal showdown between Apple and Fortnite publisher Epic Games gets underway Monday in federal court in Oakland, California. The lawsuit stems from Epic's move last August to allow players of its mobile games to directly pay for downloads and bypass the Apple App Store and Google Play store . Epic said it was effectively giving players a discount because Apple and Google each take a 30% cut of most purchases made in their online stores. Apple and Google then pulled ‘Fortnite’ from their stores, leading Epic to sue both companies, charging that their app stores are anti-competitive and monopolistic. The trial is expected to last four weeks.” Read more at USA Today
“Two Republicans qualified for a runoff to fill a vacant House seat in Texas, squashing Democrats’ hopes.” Read more at New York Times
“Utah Republicans heckled Senator Mitt Romney at the party’s state convention.” Read more at New York Times
“Lives Lived: After 33 years in the C.I.A., Jason Matthews became a best-selling author of spy thrillers, one of which was made into a movie starring Jennifer Lawrence. He died at 69.” Read more at New York Times
“El Salvador’s judiciary. Lawmakers in El Salvador voted to remove five influential Supreme Court judges and the attorney general over the weekend in a move U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has noted with ‘grave concern.’ The motions to remove the officials passed with a supermajority in El Salvador’s legislature, now ruled by President Nayib Bukele’s New Ideas party following a sweeping victory in February’s elections. Addressing the international community on Twitter Bukele dismissed rebukes over the move. ‘With all due respect: We are cleaning house … and this doesn’t concern you,’ Bukele said.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Colombia’s tax proposals. Colombian President Ivan Duque has withdrawn a controversial tax proposal following days of mass protests across the country. In a video on Sunday, Duque said he would propose a new policy ‘that is the fruit of consensus, in order to avoid financial uncertainty.’ Under the now-shelved tax plan, more Colombians would have had to pay income tax, and a value-added tax would have been extended to certain goods and services. Duque had sold the tax reforms as a means to salvage Colombia’s national credit rating, which is likely to slip further if a deal cannot be reached.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Russian officials hailed Moscow’s massive facial-recognition camera network as an aid to enforce quarantine restrictions, catch criminals and even allow residents to pay subway fares. Now it’s being deployed to crush dissent against President Vladimir Putin, with police using the system to identify and detain dozens of people who have protested in support of jailed Kremlin foe Alexey Navalny.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Manchester United Fans Storm Old Trafford to Protest Super League, Ownership - Fury over aborted plans for a European soccer Super League boiled over when protestors broke into Manchester United’s home stadium, Old Trafford, just hours before a match.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The United States on Sunday immediately denied a report by Iranian state-run television that deals had been reached for the Islamic Republic to release US and British prisoners in exchange for Tehran’s receiving billions of dollars.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the report represented a move by the hard-liners running the Iranian broadcaster to disrupt negotiations with the West amid talks in Vienna on Tehran’s tattered nuclear deal.
It also wasn't known if there had been any ongoing negotiations with the West over frozen funds and prisoner exchanges, both of which accompanied the 2015 atomic accord.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Scientists in Poland have discovered the first known case of a pregnant Egyptian mummy, after decades of recording the remains as that of a male priest. Wojciech Ejsmond, the director of the Warsaw Mummy Project, told the New York Times that the ‘absolutely unexpected’ find occurred while researchers were scrutinizing the pelvic area of the mummy, believed to date from the first century B.C., and coming across an ‘anomaly’ that, upon closer inspection, was the remains of a fetus. ‘It’s like finding a treasure trove while you are picking up mushrooms in a forest,’ Ejsmond said. ‘We are overwhelmed with this discovery.’” Read more at Foreign Policy
Rendering via Italy Ministry of Culture
“By 2023, Rome's ancient Colosseum will once again have a floor with a gladiator's view, after a construction project costing 18.5 million euros ($22 million), Italy's Ministry of Culture said.
The stage — original to the first-century amphitheater — existed until the 1800s, when it was removed for archaeological digs. Go deeper.” Read more at Axios
Visitors begin tour last month. Photo: Domenico Stinellis/AP