Good morning.
The Ukrainian president has drawn parallels between Russia’s siege of the southern city of Mariupol and that of Leningrad during the second world war, as Russian forces continued to shell Kyiv.
“Citizens of Russia, how is your blockade of Mariupol different from the blockade of Leningrad during world war two?” Volodymyr Zelenskiy said late on Wednesday, referring to the German blockade of the city now called St Petersburg, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths. “We will not forget anyone whose lives were taken by the occupiers.”
Zelenskiy’s remarks came after Joe Biden significantly toughened his rhetoric against Vladimir Putin, calling the Russian president a “war criminal”. The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said Biden’s comments were “unacceptable and unforgivable”.
How many have been killed in Mariupol? Local officials estimated that more than 2,500 people had been killed but the shelling meant the dead could not be counted. More than 400,000 were either without access to running water, food and medical supplies or struggling with a dwindling amount.
Russia launched an airstrike on a theatre in Mariupol where hundreds of displaced people were believed to have been sheltering. Zelenskiy said it was unclear how many had died or been injured.
What is the US doing? It will send an extra $800m in security assistance to Ukraine, including 800 anti-aircraft systems, 9,000 anti-armour systems, 20m rounds of ammunition and drones.
Texas rejected abnormally high number of votes in March primary
Texas discarded an abnormally high number of mail-in ballots in the US’s first primary election of 2022, with almost 23,000 votes thrown out as the Republican campaign to reshape US democracy got under way, according to analysis by the Associated Press.
About 13% of mail ballots returned in the 1 March primary were rejected across 187 counties in Texas. Experts say anything above 2% is unusual.
“My first reaction is ‘yikes’,” said Charles Stewart, the director of the Election Data and Science Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It says to me that there is something seriously wrong with the way that the mail ballot policy is being administered.”
Were votes rejected at the same rate across counties? No. The rejection rate was higher in counties that lean Democratic (15.1%) than Republican (9.1%).
Are tougher voting laws in Texas unique? No. The state is the first to cast ballots under more restrictive voting rules but at least 17 other states will do so in the coming months.
Trump White House aide was secret author of report used to push ‘big lie’
At least one Trump White House aide was involved in covertly producing a report that alleged the former president lost to Joe Biden because of Dominion voting systems. The research was a key part of Donald Trump’s wider efforts to subvert the election.
The Dominion report was initially written to be sent to legislatures in states where Trump was trying to have Biden’s win overturned. The Trump team also used it to lend credence to returning the former president to power by other means, including executive orders to give him drastic emergency powers.
The document made a number of unsubstantiated claims, alleging Dominion systems corruptly guaranteed there could be “technology glitches which resulted in thousands of votes being added to Biden’s total ballot count”.
Who was listed as the author? The report names Katherine Friess, a volunteer on the Trump post-election legal team, as its author on the cover and in metadata. She has said she had nothing to do with it and does not know why her name was on the document.
Who was the real author and why was their name removed? It was produced by a senior Trump White House policy aide, Joanna Miller, according to a source and an earlier version of the file, but it is not clear why her name was removed. She did not respond to a request for comment.
In other news …
British-Iranian prisoners Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori have been freed by Iran and have been reunited with their families in the UK. A third dual national accused of spying, the businessman and wildlife conservationist Morad Tahbaz, has been freed from prison on furlough.
A group of New Orleans residents whose homes were built on a toxic landfill decades ago have won a $75.3m court judgment. Homes built in the 1970s and 80s were marketed to Black, low- and middle-income residents who were not informed that the site had been landfill.
The former CNN host Chris Cuomo is seeking $125m in damages for alleged wrongful termination. He was fired in December after an inquiry into his efforts to advise his brother, the former New York governor Andrew Cuomo. Chris Cuomo says he was transparent and had “no reason to believe” this violated the network’s policies.
Stat of the day: eight Mexican journalists have been killed in 2022
Armando Linares López, the director of the Michoacán Monitor news website, has become the eighth journalist to be killed in Mexico this year. Nine were killed in 2021. López was shot in the conflict-ridden state of Michoacán six weeks after he announced the murder of a colleague.
Don’t miss this: can oysters save New York City from the next big storm?
Efforts to save Staten Island’s vanishing coastline involve oysters – and lots of them. Restoration projects such as Living Breakwaters use recycled oyster shells to create reefs in the breakwaters, which aim to help control flooding as the reefs grow while creating aquatic habitats and limiting erosion.
Last Thing: Nasa image of star photobombed by thousands of ancient galaxies
When scientists set out to photograph a star 2,000 light years away and 100 times fainter than the human eye can see, the background stole the show. The test shot on the James Webb space telescope showed galaxies several billions of years old “photobombing” the distant star, leaving scientists “giddy”.
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