HERE ARE THE TOP STORIES
The captain and a crew member of a migrant boat that capsized in the Mediterranean have been arrested. Italian prosecutors said the Tunisian captain and Syrian crew member were charged with favoring illegal immigration, according to the Associated Press. As many as 900 people are feared dead and, if verified, this would be the deadliest migrant tragedy ever, said European Union foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini.
Yesterday, Mogherini announced a 10-point framework of measures aimed at responding to the migrant crisis, saying the latest tragedy had “‘finally’ fully awakened the EU to the evils of human trafficking,” according to the AP, and that Europe has a “moral duty” to do something about the plight of migrants risking their lives trying to reach European shores.
And a little extra. “The EU has been under increasing criticism for lagging in its response to the crisis, with two shipwrecks believed to have taken the lives of as many as 1,300 migrants in the past week,” according to the AP. EU leaders will meet in an emergency summit on Thursday in Brussels about the crisis.
The U.S. has stepped up its support for the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Huthi rebels in Yemen. On Monday, the U.S. military deployed a warship into Yemeni waters intending to cut off any Iranian vessels that may be supplying weapons to Huthi rebels, the AP reports. It remains unclear what the U.S. will do if the warship encounters an Iranian convoy, and what will happen if the convoy refuses to cooperate. This development comes on the heels of the U.S. and six world powers successfully negotiating a framework deal on Iran’s nuclear program.
Catch up quickly.
“Struggles between two former presidents, three militant groups, and the entire rest of the region are sending Yemen back down the path to civil war,” BuzzFeed News’ Gregory D. Johnsen wrote in March.
The political crisis erupted earlier this year when Huthi rebels toppled the government of Abdu Rabu Mansur Hadi, Yemen’s internationally recognized president. Hadi’s government had also supported American drone strikes against al-Qaeda in the country.
President Hadi’s forces were able to get help from a coalition of Arab nations led by Saudi Arabia, which launched airstrikes against the rebels. Western governments and Sunni Arab countries say the Huthis get their arms from Iran, though Iran and the Shiite group deny that.
“Observers say the fighting in the strategic Mideast nation [of Yemen] is taking on the appearance of a proxy war between Iran, the Shiite powerhouse backing the Huthis, and Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia,” according to the AP.
WE’RE KEEPING AN EYE ON
Investigators are trying to determine how a man, under arrest by the Baltimore police, sustained traumatic injuries that eventually led to his death. Freddie Gray, a 27-year-old man, died on Sunday after his spine was almost severed from his neck while he was in custody. He was arrested on April 12 “without force or incident,” according to the Baltimore Sun. Police officials later said there was no evidence Gray had committed a crime.
What’s next? Baltimore is on edge in the wake of the Gray case, particularly since few answers have come from the ongoing investigation. Video footage of the incident, which was taken from a nearby building, showed very little, according to the Baltimore Sun. The department’s investigation will be forwarded to the state attorney general’s office in May, and a separate independent review of the incident will also be conducted soon.
DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THIS?
Ousted Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for inciting the killing of anti-government protesters in 2012. At least 10 people were killed in that incident. Morsi was the country’s first democratically elected president, coming to power after the Arab Spring protests pushed out President Hosni Mubarak in 2011. Twelve Muslim Brotherhood members were also sentenced to 20 years in prison.
A small-town narcotics unit in Mississippi has built a team of drug informants using college students. The unit busts college kids with low-level drug offenses and turns them into informants by threatening them with hard time or the shame and lifelong burden of a drug record. The arrests helped win nearly half the unit’s total budget from federal grants designed to help fight America’s War on Drugs, and when the drug war cooled down, they received funding from the University of Mississippi along with city and county governments. “It’s such an enterprise here,” a former local prosecutor told BuzzFeed News.
More than one out of every six black men, or about 1.5 million, who should be between 25 and 54 years old are “missing” from daily life in America — meaning that they have either suffered an early death or have been incarcerated for most of their lives. They are the victims of deep disparities in society, highlighted in recent weeks by the spate of police killings in Missouri, Oklahoma, and South Carolina. The largest gap is in Ferguson, Missouri. An analysis by the New York Times examines this demographic disparity and how it affects black communities.
A new California bill could let people sue transgender people for using restrooms that correspond with their gender identity. Under the “Personal Privacy Protection Act” initiative, which was filed Friday, every person inside a restroom at the time of an “unlawful entry” by a transgender person could sue that person for a minimum of $4,000 in damages. Earlier this year, similar bills were proposed in Florida and Texas to limit bathroom usage by transgender people.
How did a faded action star become Putin’s chosen envoy to the U.S.? The Russian president stunned President Obama when he suggested Steven Seagal, the action star known for movies like Fire Down Below and Half Past Dead, as an intermediary between Washington and Moscow during their meeting at the 2013 G-8 summit. BuzzFeed News’ Max Seddon and Rosie Gray explore Seagal’s cozy relationship with the Kremlin, and how he came to be Putin’s choice.
Quick things to know:
The number of breast cancers suffered by American women will increase by about 50% by 2030, according to the National Cancer Institute (The Washington Post)
Blue Bell Creameries is recalling all of its products over listeria fears (BuzzFeed News)
The winners of the 2015 Pulitzer Prizes were announced yesterday, marking the 99th year of the awards (BuzzFeed News)
Jon Stewart’s final episode as host of The Daily Show has been set for August 6 (BuzzFeed News)
Want to prevent someone from knowing you’ve seen their Facebook message? Here’s a guide for that (BuzzFeed News)
HAPPY TUESDAY
A man in Utah created a beautiful photo series of his 18-month-old son “flying” to show that his son’s Down syndrome doesn’t hold him back from doing spectacular things. The man, Alan Lawrence, told BuzzFeed he struggled with his son’s Down syndrome at first, but quickly grew to see it as a blessing: “I want other parents just starting out this journey…to have a more positive outlook on it than I did.”
