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Good morning, I’m Mattha Busby with today’s essential stories.
Trump impeachment ‘just not worth it’
Donald Trump should not be impeached unless the reasons for doing so are overwhelming and have bipartisan support, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has said. “I’m not for impeachment … He’s just not worth it,” she told the Washington Post. In her most direct comments yet on the subject, the top US Democrat appeared to concede there was not yet a compelling case for Trump’s impeachment. Nonetheless, she said he was ethically and intellectually unfit for office.
Investigation: Special counsel Robert Mueller is expected to soon report findings from his investigation on whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government, which could prompt Congress to take action.
Theresa May claims to have won improved Brexit deal
The British prime minister called on MPs to back a revised withdrawal deal that she said would ensure the UK could not be trapped within a permanent customs union, thus securing the changes parliament wanted. However, the European commission president said the EU had not acquiesced to May’s central demand, though he did emphasise the temporary nature of the Irish backstop. Meanwhile, others cast doubt on whether the changes were legally binding, with one Tory MP saying the government had put “a very good gloss on something that falls short”.
Parliament. MPs will today vote again on whether to back May’s deal amid scepticism over the substance of the changes. Influential backbench Tories have called for the vote to be delayed to allow for greater scrutiny of the deal.
UN: surge in chemical use poses environmental threat
Governments have failed to meet their international commitments to reduce chemical hazards and halt pollution by 2020, says the UN. The industry behind plastics, pesticides and cosmetics has never been so dominant, with global chemical production almost doubling since the turn of the millennium, putting humanity’s dependence on chemicals at its greatest ever level, according to the second Global Chemicals Outlook report.
Breathing kills. Almost 9 million people die prematurely each year around the world because of dirty air, according to research that doubles previous estimates. This means that toxic air kills more people than smoking tobacco.
Only if. Experts say that air pollution-related deaths could be reduced by up to 55% if clean, renewable energies were used in line with the Paris agreement to mitigate the effects of climate change.
Fake drugs kill more than 250,000 children a year, doctors warn
Leading doctors and experts in counterfeit medicines have urged states and pharmaceutical companies to improve security within the drug supply chain amid a global “pandemic of bad drugs” that has killed hundreds of thousands, often from substandard medicines.
‘Murder by fake medicine’. Drugs for malaria, erectile dysfunction and cardiovascular disease – often produced and sold by criminals in China and India – have been found to contain everything from printer ink, paint and arsenic.
Unknown dose. There were 29 fakes identified across 75 countries in 2008, but that figure has risen to 95 counterfeit products in 113 countries, according to Pfizer, the pharmaceutical multinational.
Crib sheet
The US has said it will withdraw all remaining diplomatic staff from Venezuela as President Nicolás Maduro accused Donald Trump of masterminding a “demonic” plot to force him from power by crippling the country’s electricity system with an imperialist “electromagnetic attack”.
Radioactive particles from an enormous solar storm 2,500 years ago have been uncovered beneath the Greenland ice sheet, prompting experts to claim that emergency plans for extreme space weather underestimate the potential risk.
“May God be with us. Can we come back?” requested a pilot before returning to Saudi Arabia after a passenger realised she accidentally left her baby at the airport, in a predicament that appeared to be a first for air traffic controllers.
The governor of Washington, Jay Inslee is to decide whether the composting of human remains should be legal after state legislators passed a bill that would see it become the first in the US to legalize the alternative to cremation and burial.
Must-reads
There’s a big difference between being poor, and being broke
Genuine poverty can befall anyone in the event of illness, unemployment or other unforeseen, unfortunate events. Katie Smith describes how she was plunged into poverty when her son needed expensive healthcare, and is now calling upon people to examine their own privilege before flippantly using the phrase “I’m so poor”.
US students to join global wave of school strikes on 15 March
More than 100,000 youngsters around the world will skip school and attend rallies on Friday to demand radical cuts to greenhouse gas emissions. One of the organisers of the global strike, Alexandria Villasenor, 13, has protested outside the UN in New York City for the past nine weeks and says she won’t stop until concrete action is taken.
Pedestrian road deaths surge amid increased phone use and SUV popularity
The number of people killed in pedestrian road deaths in the US has risen by more than a third between 2008 and 2017, with an estimated 6,227 killed in 2018, an almost three-decade high. Though no single factor was identified for fuelling the rise in deaths, experts called for improved street lighting and stricter enforcement of traffic laws.
What animals can teach us about politics
Man is by nature a political animal, wrote Aristotle. Fast forward 2,400 years, and apish behaviour is on stark display, whether it is Donald Trump trudging across the stage and bullying his opponents, Sean Spicer shirking in the shrubs or James Comey wearing a blue suit to blend in with the wallpaper. Frans de Waal writes.
Opinion
Kevin Rudd, the former prime minister of Australia, says that free trade deals between the UK and Commonwealth countries cannot mitigate against the damage of leaving the EU.
If Britain proceeds with giving effect to what future historians will legitimately describe as the longest suicide note in history by leaving the union, the cold, hard reality is that the mathematics simply don’t stack up in terms of credible economic alternatives to Europe.
Sport
The embattled Real Madrid have persuaded former manager Zinedine Zidane to return to the fold, less than a year since he said “see you later” and left the club after a glorious, trophy-laden spell in charge. In a quick-fire trio of defeats, the club was knocked out of both the Copa Del Rey and the Champions League, while Los Blancos have also slumped to 12 points behind La Liga leaders Barcelona. Welcome back, Zizi.
Can the NHL shed its notorious reputation for white machismo and make the ice a more welcoming space for people of color? With shifting demographics in north America, the league – which celebrated Black History Month for the first time this year – knows it needs to adapt and ensure hockey is for everyone.
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