Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.

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UK Parliament approves Rwanda deportation bill, ending weeks of legislative stalemate

Summary: Following months of unsuccessful attempts by British Prime Minister Sunak to kick off a program that would allow the government to send some migrants to the UK to Rwanda, the House of Lords dropped its proposed amendments to the policy and recognized the House of Commons’ primacy in the matter, which has allowed the bill to move forward.

Context: This deal has been in the works, in some form, for about two years, and would allow the British government to deport some migrants who enter the country illegally to Rwanda as a means of deterring future illegal entrants; this new legislation was formulated in response to a Supreme Court ruling on an earlier iteration of the bill, which said it’s illegal to deport migrants in this way because the government can’t guarantee the safety of people shipped off to Rwanda; a new treaty with the Rwandan government would seem to address these concerns, and now that the House of Lords has removed itself as a barrier, lawsuits brought by migrants are the last remaining threat to this policy.

—The Associated Press

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H5N1 strain of Bird Flu found in milk

Summary: The World Health Organization has announced that very high concentrations of the H5N1 bird flu virus strain have been detected in raw milk in the US, but that pasteurization kills the virus, so the vast majority of milk sold in stores, even from dairies that have been impacted by bird flu in recent months, is safe to drink.

Context: This announcement arrives shortly after news that all sorts of mammals in the US have been confirmed infected by H5N1, and that a dairy farm worker in Texas caught the disease after being exposed to infected cattle; there’s no evidence so far that H5N1 is transmissible between humans, but any new vector for spreading this sort of disease, which is incredibly deadly in its bird and mammalian hosts, is concerning, and the relevant agencies are on high alert regarding this pathogen, right now.

—Barron’s

NYPD arrests Gaza war protesters at NYU in fresh US campus flashpoint

Summary: Multiple people have been arrested by police following protests at NYU’s campus Monday night, which follows similar protests and arrests at campuses across the US, including Yale and Columbia University.

Context: Most of these protests are focused on Israel’s ongoing invasion of the Gaza Strip, and protestors are generally demanding that their schools divest from weapons manufacturers and Israel-based entities that might be funding or otherwise supporting this invasion; there have been accusations of anti-Semitic language and attacks at and around some of these protests, there have also been concerns that non-students have mixed in with student protestors to co-opt these events and in some cases tilt them toward extreme language or small acts of violence, and many teachers and students have criticized the folks running these universities for calling the police to break up these protests, in some cases punishing students for protesting, even to the point of booting them from the university—all of which has created a firestorm of accusations and anger, and the emergence of more protests, at these and other educational institutions.

—Axios

Argentina’s economic activity is looking like to have dropped 5.9% in February compared to the same month in 2023, which (if confirmed) will mark the fourth straight month of declines during a period of intense austerity implemented by the country’s new president, who ran on a platform of dramatically cutting spending and curtailing the nation’s substantial inflation levels.

—Reuters

$2.4 trillion

Value of global military spending in 2023—the highest it’s been in 35 years.

This uptick (of about 6.8% from 2022 levels) is primarily being attributed to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and all the spending that has resulted (within Ukraine and Russia, but also across Europe).

—The New York Times

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