A troop made up of homeless girls is on a mission to sell Girl Scout cookies in all 50 states

When one troop of Girl Scouts in Iowa was given the goal of selling more than 1,000 boxes of cookies, the girls put on their signature sashes and got to work, flexing their entrepreneurial skills.As of Feb. 26, the girls in Troop 64224 of Council Bluffs, Iowa, have sold over 5,000 boxes of cookies, shattering its sales goal for the 2021 cookie selling season. And it’s all in spite of one large obstacle. The girls in the troop live in an emergency homeless shelter known as Micah House.

CNN

‘It’s a toxic blend’: where the kids are warned not to swallow the bath water

An invisible line splits the rural road of Avenue 416 in California’s Tulare county, at the point where the nut trees stretch east toward the towering Sierra Nevada mountains in the distance.

On one side of the line, residents have clean water. On the other side, they do not.

The Guardian

CPAC, all-in for Trump, is not what it used to be

The Conservative Political Action Committee’s annual presidential preference poll over the years was won four times by Mitt Romney, three times by Jack Kemp and once by George W. Bush.

None would be welcome at the conference held this week in Orlando, Fla.

This right-wing confab now is more TPAC — as in Trump — than CPAC. The former president reasserted his dominance of the Republican party through 2024. Differences, much less dissent, are verboten. Former Vice President Mike Pence isn’t attending, knowing he’d face a hostile reception after refusing last month to violate the law and reject the electoral votes on the presidential election.

The Hill

Why Republicans Are Moving To Fix Elections That Weren’t Broken

Republican-led legislatures in dozens of states are moving to change election laws in ways that could make it harder to vote.

Many proposals explicitly respond to the 2020 election: Lawmakers cite public concerns about election security — concerns generated by disinformation that then-President Donald Trump spread while trying to overturn the election.

The Brennan Center, a nonprofit that tracks voting laws, says that 43 states — including key swing states — are considering 253 bills that would raise barriers to voting, for example by reducing early voting days or limiting access to voting by mail. Lawmakers in a different set of 43 states have proposed expanding voter access, but Republicans have prioritized new security requirements and shorter voting periods.

NPR

White evangelicals’ dominance of the GOP has turned it into the party of resistance

For obvious reasons, President Joe Biden made the coronavirus pandemic his first legislative priority. Polling shows wide public support for his $1.9 trillion relief plan.

But that didn’t translate to Republican support for the measure. When the House passed the bill last week, not a single GOP lawmaker voted yes.

That offered a bookend to developments in state capitals across the nation, where Republicans seek to restrict access to the ballot. After Biden defeated Donald Trump in a presidential election free of large-scale voter fraud, Republican legislators have proposed curbing voting methods used last November in the name of stopping large-scale fraud.

In both cases, Republicans defied broad signals from the political marketplace. Instead, they heeded the defiant partisan impulse that Trump sounded before leaving office: “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

CNN

Atlantic Ocean circulation is the weakest in at least 1,600 years, study finds – here’s what that means for the climate

An influential current system in the Atlantic Ocean, which plays a vital role in redistributing heat throughout our planet’s climate system, is now moving more slowly than it has in at least 1,600 years. That’s the conclusion of a new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience from some of the world’s leading experts in this field.

Scientists believe that part of this slowing is directly related to our warming climate, as melting ice alters the balance in northern waters. Its impact may be seen in storms, heat waves and sea-level rise. And it bolsters concerns that if humans are not able to limit warming, the system could eventually reach a tipping point, throwing global climate patterns into disarray.

CBS News

NASA To Rename Its Headquarters After ‘Hidden Figures’ Icon Mary Jackson

NASA announced that it’s naming its headquarters in Washington, D.C., after legendary Black scientist Mary Jackson, one of the many Black women that played a pivotal role in putting the first man on the moon. 

The organization held a ceremony Friday to mark the naming, with Jackson’s granddaughter in attendance along with Clayton Turner, NASA Langley center director.

Jackson, who died in 2005, spent more than 30 years as a mathematician and engineer with NASA and its predecessor. She was the organization’s first Black woman engineer and later worked on efforts to increase diversity within NASA. 

Blavity

Biden: Undocumented immigrants should get vaccine without ICE targeting them

President Biden said Friday that undocumented immigrants should be able to receive the COVID-19 vaccine without fear of being targeted by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Biden make the remark during an interview with Univision during his visit to a vaccination site in Texas.

“I want to make sure they are able to get vaccinated and so they’re protected from COVID without the ICE or anyone interfering,” Biden said. “They should… not be arrested for showing for being able to get a vaccination.”

Biden also said he plans to make sure undocumented immigrants have food, noting that his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief proposal increases funding for nutrition assistance.

The Hill

‘Milk Tea Alliance’ activists across Asia hold rallies against Myanmar coup

Activists across Asia held rallies on Sunday to support protesters in Myanmar fighting against a military coup, showing the growing influence of cross-border youth movements pushing for democracy with the rallying cry “Milk Tea Alliance”.

Reuters

Ethiopia’s Tigray crisis: Blinken says US concerned about atrocities

“We are deeply concerned by the worsening humanitarian crisis,” Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said.

An Amnesty report said crimes against humanity may have been committed.

Hundreds have been killed and tens of thousands displaced in four months.

The conflict erupted on 4 November 2020 when Ethiopia’s government launched an offensive to oust the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) after its fighters captured federal military bases in Tigray.

BBC

How the Czech Republic slipped into a Covid disaster, one misstep at a time

On an epidemiological map of the world, the Czech Republic shows up as a tiny island of doom and gloom. While the global number of new coronavirus cases has been dropping for six consecutive weeks, the Central European nation of 10 million has been experiencing near record levels of new infections.

A new, more infectious variant of the virus has spread across the country, pushing Czech hospitals to the brink of collapse. The country’s death toll has just surpassed 20,000. Its death rate is among the highest in the world.

CNN

Different fight, ‘same goal’: How the Black freedom movement inspired early gay activists

The sit-in at Dewey’s is among a long list of examples that show a “direct line” to the Black civil rights movement, according to Stein. Specifically, sit-ins organized by gay activists in the ‘60s appear to be directly inspired by protests held in 1960 by Black college students at Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, against racial segregation.

NBC News