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Reminder: In the US, Daylight Saving Time (DST) begins on Sunday, March 8 at 2 AM. At that time, you should set your clocks forward one hour.
More State Control of Trade: US Considers Requiring Permits for Nvidia, AMD Global AI Chip Sales (Bloomberg)
US officials have written draft regulations that would restrict AI chip shipments to anywhere in the world without American approval, giving Washington broad control over whether other countries can build facilities for training and running artificial-intelligence models — and under what conditions.
Not So Fast: Federal Commission Delays Vote on Trump’s White House Ballroom Project (Washington Post)
A federal planning commission on Thursday delayed a vote on Donald Trump’s planned White House ballroom until next month, citing “significant public input,” including tens of thousands of comments — nearly all of them critical of the project.
Staying the Course: China Makes Stability No. 1 Task in World Shaken by Trump (Bloomberg)
Continuity defined Premier Li Qiang’s address to lawmakers on Thursday at the country’s highest-profile political gathering since the US and Israel struck Iran. The growth target was nudged slightly lower, fiscal spending remained roughly on par with
last year and language on Taiwan was left largely unchanged. China even scaled back military spending, despite war flaring in the Middle East.
What wasn’t said was almost as notable. There were no direct mentions of Trump’s latest actions, as is customary at carefully choreographed Communist Party events planned months in advance. Investors hoping for sweeping economic stimulus were disappointed. Also absent was any signal that China plans to shrink a record trade surplus that
has alarmed officials from Washington to Brussels
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Making America Unhealthy: Parents Tried to Shield Their Children From Vaccines. Instead They Got Measles. (New York Times)
Measles was vanquished in the US more than 25 years ago because of high rates of vaccinated schoolchildren. But in Spartanburg, SC — ground zero for the largest measles outbreak since 2000 — those mandates have been weakened by vaccine skepticism and the state’s religious exemption, which has driven vaccination rates perilously low.
According to reporting by Axios, experts say a vaccination rate of 95% is needed to prevent outbreaks. But at the Global Academy of South Carolina, a public charter school in Spartanburg, only 21 percent of its students were vaccinated, one of the worst rates for a public school in the state.
This chart shows how measles has made a comeback in the US. As of Feb. 26, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed a total of 1,136 infections in 27 states — a huge increase for the highly contagious disease roughly two months into the year.
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