MARCH 2023 NEWS

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A South Carolina barbecue chain known for its pro-segregation stance in a landmark 1960s case and its embrace of the Confederate flag in 2000 is facing allegations of racism and sexual harassment by the fired general manager of one of its restaurants. According to a lawsuit filed this week by a Black woman who worked at a Maurice’s Piggie Park BBQ location in Columbia, the man who ran it, general manager Jeff Harrison, coerced her early last year into a sexual relationship with promises of a raise, which he paid.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is stirring unease in Washington with his call for a cease-fire in Ukraine. The US and its allies believe that would allow Vladimir Putin to “freeze” Russia’s territorial gains, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying the “world should not be fooled.”

TikTok Chief Executive Shou Chew’s appearance in Congress on Thursday did little to calm the bipartisan fury directed at the viral video-sharing service. If anything, his more than four hours of testimony gave critics more fuel to insist the app be banned in the US.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Lauren Balcioni, a 25-year-old beverage cart girl in the Bay Area. Her income has been verified with documentation by Insider. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I used to work a boring, remote corporate job, but I quit it in May 2022 because it was difficult to manage as the single mom of a baby. I started researching ways to make a lot of money in a short amount of time, and I came across a beverage-cart girl named Cassie Holland who said she made $600 in tips in one shift. Her job looked like something I could do on the weekends when my husband, who I'm separated from, looks after the baby.

Children's medication, antibiotics and treatment for ADHD are among a number of drugs that have been in short supply in recent months — and these shortages of critical medications are only rising, according to a new report released on Wednesday. From 2021 to 2022, new drug shortages increased by nearly 30%, according to the report prepared by Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

A large majority of Americans in a new poll said they find it believable that former President Trump paid adult-film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election to keep her from talking about an alleged affair between the two. Seventy percent in the Reuters-Ipsos poll released on Tuesday said they find the allegations at the center of the Manhattan district attorney’s probe into the former president to be very or somewhat believable.

Authorities identified the gunman who opened fire at a Denver high school and found his body nearly 50 miles from the scene less than a day later. NBC News’ Morgan Chesky reports on the demand for change amid gun violence fears.
 

Police fired tear gas and fought with violent black-clad anarchists in Paris and across France on Thursday as hundreds of thousands of protesters marched against President Emmanuel Macron's plan to raise the pension age. The ninth day of nationwide protests, mostly peaceful, disrupted train and air travel. Teachers were among many professions to walk off the job, days after the government pushed through legislation to raise the retirement age by two years to 64.

Alexa Bliss has warned others (and her younger self) of the dangers of tanning beds amid her current hiatus from WWE. The former Raw and SmackDown Women's Champion hasn't been seen on WWE TV since the Royal Rumble, where she lost to Raw Women's Champion Bianca Belair. Post-match, Uncle Howdy spoke to Bliss via a video, though this angle has yet to be followed up on WWE programming.

Months after Kansas voters decided to uphold protections for abortion rights, the state's House of Representatives approved a bill based on the disputed idea that providers leave newborns to die after unsuccessful abortions. The bill passed with a 88-34 vote. If approved, the bill would provide legal protections for infants born alive after a failed abortion, requiring healthcare providers to provide them with care. The bill would create criminal penalties and civil liability for violations of the act.

 A neuropsychologist who treated the man suing Gwyneth Paltrow over a 2016 ski collision cast aspersions on the testimony of medical experts hired by the celebrity's legal team — and argued that, as his personal doctor, she was better suited to speak about 76-year-old Terry Sanderson's post-concussion symptoms. "A lot of the experts are opining. I feel like I’m the best judge of what happened to him," Dr. Alina Fong said.

Saliva guitarist and founding member Wayne Swinny passed away on Wednesday, March 22nd, at the age of 59. A band representative told TMZ that Swinny suffered a "spontaneous brain hemorrhage" during the band's tour. "It is with great sadness that we report the passing of Wayne Swinny, the guitarist of Saliva. 

A newly-discovered bright comet visible to naked eyes – even from the suburbs of larger cities – will whiz past Earth next year. While naked-eye comets are rare, visible roughly once in two years, C/2023 A3 could be a comet of a decade, according to Peter Veres, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said on Wednesday that four new military bases under a defense agreement with the U.S. would be located in various parts of the Philippines, including in a province facing the South China Sea. Last month, Marcos granted the U.S. access to four sites, on top of five existing locations under the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which comes amid China's growing assertiveness in the South China Sea and towards Taiwan.

Prince Harry has been asked to give the UK’s Home office one month of notice that he will be traveling across the pond so they can determine if the former royal needs a security detail. According to a new report obtained by The Telegraph, after submitting the security request it is up to the Home Office to decide the level of security needed since the Duke “stepped back” from royal life in 2020.The Duke of Sussex hit back at the office asking them to provide an example of someone like the former royal who didn’t receive security after leaving the public eye.

Former U.S. Congressman Stephen Buyer was convicted by a New York jury on Friday of trading on inside information he learned in 2018 as a consultant to T-Mobile US Inc. ahead of its $23 billion merger with Sprint. Buyer was a Republican from Indiana in the U.S. House of Representatives between 1993 and 2011 before working as a corporate consultant.

North Korea fired multiple cruise missiles toward the East Sea Wednesday, the latest show of its military capabilities during the 11-days-long joint drills between the U.S. and South Korea. The U.S.-South Korea joint military exercise is expected to wrap up Thursday morning local time.

The US government announced a plan Wednesday to overhaul the country’s organ transplant system.The US Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration said it will focus on accountability and transparency by seeking more contracts to operate the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network and sharing data more transparently. The system has only ever been managed by the nonprofit United Network for Organ Sharing, which has been recently criticized for its handling of organs, long waitlists for transplants and the number of deaths among people waiting: about 6,000 per year. There are currently more than 100,000 people in the United States waiting for an organ transplant.