Your Tuesday Briefing

Good evening. Here’s today’s briefing.

1. Yesterday, the NCAA college basketball (women’s) “Elite Eight” games were played, with Baylor defeating Iowa 85-53 and Notre Dame beating Stanford 84-68.
2. A male suspect has been identified for the shooting/murder of Los Angeles rapper Nipsey Hussle, who was killed right outside his store.
3. Facebook plans to launch a “high-quality” news site by the end of 2019.
4. Former Vice President Joe Biden is struggling to announce his presidential campaign as allegations of sexual harassment come into light.
5. Lyft‘s stock has gone down, while SUV sales are expected to be down in the last for years (auto sales figures will be released today).
6. Mayor of Baltimore Catherine Pugh will take a leave of absence as a result of a scandal regarding the selling of books to Kaiser Permanente (the city council president will take over her day-to-day duties).
7. An emergency disaster relief bill has stalled in the Senate as Democrats demand more funding for Puerto Rico. Republican operatives and moderate Democrats are concerned that the bill won’t pass with more funding for Puerto Rico. As it stands, the current vote is 49-44.
8. A four-person homicide at a store in Mandan, North Dakota, is still being investigated.
9. The Ukrainian presidential election is going into a runoff round; no candidate crossed the threshold required to become President. Now, the two top candidates will face off: a comedian who is currently in the lead and the incumbent president.
10. As a result of Japan’s current emperor’s abdication, the next emperor will usher in a new imperial era, as all past emperors have done. Japan announced that the new imperial era to come, which will begin on May 1, 2019, will be called reiwa, meaning “a time of order and harmony”.
11. The Mueller probe‘s long-awaited release has had a minimal effect on President Trump’s ratings.
12. Venezuelan President and dictator Nicolás Maduro has ordered a national rationing of electricity.
13. According to the Pew Research Center, 56% of Americans think President Trump has done too little to distance himself from white nationalists.
14. President Trump has again expressed his intentions to cut foreign aid for Central America.
15. President Trump said the census would be meaningless without the question “are you a citizen of the United States of America”. Many experts disagree, saying that eliminating the question would cause less people to respond to census-takers and even lie, which would cost a loss of potentially invaluable data on the US population.

This day is over. This briefing will no longer be updated.