Russia Arrests Navalny Mourners, Won't Let Family Recover His Body
Alabama court says frozen embryos are children; Iran allegedly warns against provoking US further;
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Good morning,
Passengers on some flights over the weekend effectively went supersonic after speeds topped 800 mph thanks to strong winds over the Mid-Atlantic. That’s faster than the speed of sound: 767 mph.
Winds at cruising altitude hit around 265 mph. It was the second-highest wind speed recorded in the region, just behind the 267 mph logged on Dec. 6, 2002.
No BOOM was heard, though, as the plane was moving through the air at its ordinary cruising speed (typically 550-600mph), which prevented the sound barrier from breaking.
The best part: a Virgin Atlantic flight from D.C. to London shaved off 45 minutes and a United Airlines flight from Newark, N.J., to Lisbon, Portugal arrived 20 minutes early.
Have a good one!
Mosheh, Jill, & Lauren
🇷🇺 WHAT NAVALNY’S DEATH MEANS FOR PUTIN’S RUSSIA
Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny who died in Russian detention on Friday, is blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin for her husband’s death in an Arctic penal colony. She is also vowing to carry on Navalny’s work fighting Putin’s autocratic regime.
Russian authorities have thus far refused to release his body to his family. They arrested hundreds of mourners over the weekend, some for simply putting flowers on makeshift memorials.
CAUSE OF DEATH: UNKNOWN
Russian officials say they still do not know what killed Navalny at age 47, but that they’re ‘looking into it.’ Many Western leaders have already placed blame on Putin, who is already accused of ordering the poisoning of Navalny prior to imprisoning him.
Target on his back: Navalny amassed huge popularity in Russia for exposing corruption in Putin's inner circle and forming the most effective political opposition movement against the Russian leader — even running for president himself.
In 2020, his work nearly killed him after he was poisoned with a Soviet-era nerve agent and was flown to Germany for treatment and to recuperate.
Navalny then voluntarily returned to Russia in 2021, where he was arrested and sentenced to crimes that his allies said were largely fabricated— all in an effort to silence him.
Despite being repeatedly placed in solitary confinement and moved to a remote penal colony near the Arctic, Navalny and his team continued their anti-corruption work and criticism of Putin.
WHAT’S NEXT
His widow said that Russian authorities are keeping her husband’s body until the poison allegedly used to kill him won’t be detected.
In her video, she says, "I call on you to stand beside me, to share not only in the grief and endless pain that has enveloped us and won't let go. I ask you to share my rage — to share my rage, anger and hatred of those who have dared to kill our future."
President Biden says he’s considering additional Russian sanctions in response to Navalny’s death. British Foreign Minister David Cameron said the U.K. will take action and called on other countries to do so.
For his part, former President Trump didn’t condemn Putin in his statement, and instead said Navalny’s death reminds him of his own legal woes and condemned the US as a “failing nation.”
The Russian presidential election is coming up March 15-17. Navalny had previously called on Russians to vote for anyone but Putin. But with no real contenders —given that Putin controls who is on the ballot— he is guaranteed a fifth term in office.
🇮🇷 IRAN WARNS PROXY GROUPS AGAINST FIGHTING US
Iranian officials are reportedly advising leaders within its 'axis of resistance' — proxy terror groups that include Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Houthis in Yemen — to exercise restraint against US forces in the Middle East.
This directive follows US-launched counter-strikes in response to the deaths of three US service members from a drone attack last month from Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah.
END GAME
Iran trains, arms and helps fund groups that carry out their anti-West agenda, without getting too involved in the conflict and have some deniability. Publicly, Iranian leaders have been sending messages of strength — saying they’d respond to any American attack. However, privately senior leaders are urging caution, feeling they have already accomplished their mission of weakening the US and Israel, and don’t want to set off a wider war.
Iranian-backed groups in Iraq and Syria have not attacked US forces in over two weeks.
NOT GETTING THE MEMO
But it appears the strategy doesn’t apply to all groups. The Houthis continue to attack commercial shipping in the Red Sea, and the US struck five Houthi targets, including an undersea drone over the weekend.
New Houthi strategy?: The US said it took out an unmanned underwater vessel (UUV) for the first time since the Houthis began attacking commercial ships last year.
🔬 ALABAMA SUPREME COURT SAYS FROZEN EMBRYOS ARE “CHILDREN”
In a first of its kind ruling, the Alabama Supreme Court defined frozen embryos retrieved through IVF as “children” entitled to the same legal rights as other “unborn children.” The decision allows a wrongful death lawsuit to proceed against an Alabama fertility clinic where several couples’ embryos were destroyed.
THE CASE
Three couples are suing the clinic after their frozen embryos were destroyed when a wandering hospital patient dropped the specimens. A lower court dismissed the lawsuit, but the state’s Supreme Court overruled that decision—stating the couples can sue for wrongful death because the embryos are considered children even before being implanted in the womb.
IVF is a procedure where doctors extract eggs from ovaries and fertilize them with sperm outside the body, forming embryos — usually, multiple embryos are created to ensure there’s more to implant if one does not take.
The families sued for damages under Alabama’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act — under which, if a pregnant mother is killed in a car accident, for example, the unborn baby would also be considered a victim. But it wasn’t clear until now if the law applied to frozen embryos.
The court agreed with the couples, ruling on Friday that, “unborn children are ‘children’ under the Act, without exception based on developmental stage, physical location, or any other ancillary characteristics.”
THE RULING
In the Alabama Supreme Court opinions, the justices cited biblical passages and God. The state’s ruling just applies to Alabama, but at least 11 states have defined life starting at fertilization in their state laws.
In the dissenting opinion, the judge said the ruling “almost certainly ends the creation of frozen embryos through IVF in Alabama.”
The Medical Association of the State of Alabama said IVF will likely be more expensive in the state and that “the increased risk of legal exposure might result in Alabama’s fertility clinics shutting down.”
Remember, to give a patient the best chance at a pregnancy, multiple embryos are usually created in the hopes that a patient can try again if an attempt at a pregnancy fails. As a result, as many eggs as possible are often fertilized and kept frozen.
Prior to this ruling, it was already tough for patients to decide what to do with the fertilized embryos once they don’t need them anymore—like donate them or destroy them.
Now parents or clinics will need to consider whether disposing of the fertilized eggs could make them liable for punitive damages.
⏳ SPEED READ
🚨NATION
📌 California braces for flooding again as another wet winter storm hits (AP)
📌 Texas gov. announces plans to build 80-acre base in Eagle Pass (CNN)
📌 Trump unveils $399 branded shoes at ‘Sneaker Con’ (NPR)
📌 Abraham Lincoln pardoned Biden's great-great-grandfather after Civil War-era brawl, documents reportedly show (CBS NEWS)
🌎 AROUND THE WORLD
📌 Israel says ground offensive in Rafah will begin by Ramadan next month if hostages aren’t returned (BBC)
📌 The EU opens formal probe into TikTok over protection of children (CNN)
📌 Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s last ditch effort to avoid extradition to the US (BBC)
📌 Russia takes Avdiivka from Ukraine, biggest gain in nine months (REUTERS)
📱BUSINESS, SCIENCE & TECH
📌 Ozempic is taking off with the world’s largest obese population, and it’s not the US (WSJ)
📌 Mega Credit Card Deal: Capital One to acquire Discover (FOX BUSINESS)
📌 Gold could hit $3000 in next 12-18 months (CNBC)
📌 New Odysseus lunar mission will attempt to make a historic landing at the moon’s south pole (CNN)
🎬 SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT
📌 NBA breaks 200-point barrier in record-smashing All-Star game (Eastern Conference beats the West 211-186) (AXIOS)
📌 ‘Shirley’ trailer released, Regina King portrays the first Black Congresswoman in biopic (VARIETY)
📌 Oppenheimer's Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr scoop BAFTA Film Awards (BBC)
📌 Travis Kelce spent over $16K on Taylor Swift's Valentine's Day gift (SI)
🗓 ON THIS DAY: FEBRUARY 20
1872: The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC opened to the public.
1959: Jimi Hendrix at age 16 made his stage debut in Seattle's Temple De Hirsch Sinai synagogue.
1971: The United States Emergency Broadcast System was mistakenly activated for an erroneous national alert that would be used in a nuclear attack. It happened at 9:33am on a Saturday morning.
It seems that the tapes, for both tests and actual emergencies, had been hung side-by-side on pegs in front of the teletype operator, leading to the wrong tape to be pulled and transmitted. In other words, no one told them “This is just a test” until about 40 minutes later.
And a few notable birthdays on this day (all from the music world): Rihanna, Kurt Cobain and Olivia Rodrigo.