This archive report was first published on 9 May 2021.
Weekend Briefing ¶
Published on May 9, 2021
Florida and Texas have become the latest states to move toward limiting voter access, joining Republican-backed measures in Georgia, Montana, and Iowa. Other states, including Arizona, Michigan, and Ohio, are considering their own bills.
On Thursday, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida signed a law that restricts absentee ballots and expands a current rule that prohibits outside groups from canvassing close to polling places. Critics say the new law will disproportionately hurt people of color.
Meanwhile, a ransomware attack forced the shutdown of one of the largest U.S. pipelines, which carries 45 percent of the East Coast's fuel supplies. The operator of the system, Colonial Pipeline, said it had halted systems for its 5,500 miles of pipeline in an effort to contain the breach on its computer networks.
Attacks on critical infrastructure have accelerated in recent months after two breaches, one by Russia's main intelligence service and another by Chinese hackers, underscored the vulnerability of the networks. In the coming weeks, the Biden administration is expected to issue an executive order to bolster security of federal and private systems.
Explosions outside a high school in Afghanistan's capital killed at least 50 people and wounded dozens more, many of them teenage girls leaving class. The attack has underscored fears about the nation's future, with rights groups raising alarms that the U.S. troop withdrawal will endanger women if the Taliban widen their grip over parts of the country.
India is home to the world's largest vaccine maker, the Serum Institute, which had big plans to inoculate the poor across the globe against Covid-19. However, those promises have fallen apart, with the company's chief executive, Adar Poonawalla, defending his company and its ambitions.
After seven years apart, Ana Paredes and her 10-year-old daughter, Melissa, were reunited in Los Angeles last month. Melissa's arrival marked the end of a 2,500-mile journey that began in Guatemala in February and ended in a hazardous raft trip across the Rio Grande into Texas.
Regulators in California will require the nation's largest cluster of warehouses used by Amazon and others to drastically clean up their emissions. The new rules would force the operators of some 3,000 mega-warehouses larger than 100,000 square feet to slash pollution from trucks that serve those facilities.
And on Mother's Day, we asked 12 moms to revel in their talents and share their secret strengths. When the pandemic hit last March, one photographer with a new baby turned to other mothers for comfort, capturing them across New York City and asking them to write letters to their children.
