First Thing: Biden and Trump rerun confirmed as both secure nominations
Good morning.
It’s official: with Joe Biden and Donald Trump winning their respective primary elections in Georgia, Mississippi and Washington state on Tuesday, a rerun of the 2020 presidential election is now assured.
Both men captured nearly all the votes cast so far in what had become token state primaries, kicking off a campaign where faith in democracy is likely to be a dividing line. Last week Biden highlighted threats to democracy in his State of the Union speech, whereas Trump said on Monday one of his first acts if given a second presidency would be to pardon January 6 insurrectionists.
What are the national polls saying? Varying things, but most recently a Morning Consult poll conducted from 8 to 10 March has Biden at 43% and Trump at 44%.
Starvation being used as a weapon in Gaza, says EU official
The EU foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, has criticized the lack of aid entering Gaza as a “man-made” disaster.
“This humanitarian crisis … is not a natural disaster, is not a flood, is not an earthquake, it is man made,” said Borrell at the UN on Tuesday. “Starvation is being used as a war arm.” He added: “When we condemn this happening in Ukraine, we have to use the same words of what’s happening in Gaza.”
How bad is hunger in Gaza? The health ministry says 27 people have died of malnutrition and dehydration, most of them children. Aid is being delivered by air and sea amid frustration from the international community that Israel has been blocking land routes carrying food, water and medicines.
White House announces $300m stopgap military aid package for Ukraine
The Pentagon is hastily sending about $300m in weapons to Ukraine after finding some cost savings in its contracts, even though the military remains deeply overdrawn and needs at least $10bn to replenish all the weapons it has pulled from its stocks to help Kyiv in its desperate fight against Russia, the White House said.
The figure is a far cry from the $60bn allocated to Ukraine in a bill that is currently languishing in the house because the Republican speaker refuses to bring it to a vote.
Ukraine is running dangerously low on munitions and efforts to get fresh funds for weapons have stalled in the house because of Republican opposition.
Units on the frontline have been rationing munitions as they face a vastly better supplied Russian force. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has repeatedly implored Congress for help.
What’s the latest on the frontlines? Ukraine pounded targets in Russia with dozens of drones and rockets in a sweeping attack. Russia said its forces prevented incursions from Ukraine on Tuesday and inflicted heavy losses on the attackers, after Ukraine-based armed groups said they had launched cross-border raids.
In other news …
Swedish police forcibly removed Greta Thunberg and other climate activists from the Swedish parliament, after they blocked the entrance for a second day.
Two detectives looking for 43 students who went missing almost 10 years ago have themselves disappeared in Mexico’s Pacific coast state of Guerrero, the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said.
Robert Hur, the US justice department special counsel, told Congress he was just doing his job when he highlighted Joe Biden’s apparent inability to recall certain events – despite a transcript of his interview with the US president that largely shows the opposite.
A Palestinian citizen of Israel has been granted asylum in the UK after saying he would face persecution in his home country on the grounds of race, his Muslim faith and his view that Israel “is governed by an apartheid regime”.
New York City police officers used a stun gun on a man who was holding a one-year-old child in a city-operated shelter on Friday night, a video shows.
An aide to the dead Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was attacked with a hammer outside his home in Lithuania.
Stat of the day: 47% of US parents financially supporting adult children, study finds
A study conducted by Savings.com found that young, working-class Americans were not substantially benefiting from the recovery of the country’s economy, as “evidenced by high employment, falling inflation, and economic growth”. That has forced many of them to continue to rely on their parents to help cover costs of living. Millennials and gen X adult children on average received between $907 and $960 a month from their parents.
Don’t miss this: revealing the secret algorithm that controls the lives of Serco’s immigration detainees
In Australia, an opaque risk rating system from Serco, used in detention centres, is riddled with errors and in effect makes the company, in the words of one former detainee, “judge, jury and executioner”, according to a Guardian investigation. The centres give each detainee is given security risk ratings – for escape or violence – decided by an algorithm. An assessment can also have a significant bearing on where a detainee is placed in the country’s detention network.
Last Thing: Trader Joe’s mini tote bags head for tulip mania as resale prices hit $1,200
Trader Joe’s new mini tote bag only costs $2.99, but some have hit the resale market for as much as $1,200 on eBay. Young people on TikTok are decorating their mini Trader Joe’s totes with embroidery, patches and paint, and TikTokers have posted clips showing chaotic scenes on the supermarket floor, with hordes of customers grabbing as many bags as they can carry.
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