Mar 25, 2022 4 min read Daily Digests

⏳ Friday Fix: Next Stop, Poland

Morning all,

President Biden heads to Poland to show support and continue his condemnation of Russia.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump sues Hillary Clinton and other Democrats for "tying his campaign to Russia".

Until tomorrow,

Your Fixers

GOOD LISTENER?

Click the screenshot below to access the podcast version of today's NewsFix.

UKRAINE - SOME STATS

In a stark statistic, UNICEF has said "more than half of Ukraine's children" have been displaced in the month since the war began.

President Zelensky was also quoted in The Guardian as saying Russia has destroyed "230 schools, 155 kindergartens and killed 128 children in Ukraine".

IF YOU WATCH ONE THING TODAY...

BBC News aired a special report on Kharkiv by Quentin Somerville on Thursday. It is an astonishing look from the front line, with shelling all around them as they film with Ukrainian soldiers.

ON TODAY'S AGENDA...

President Biden is expected to visit US troops and meet the President Duda in Poland today.

The Guardian said he will visit a town in eastern Poland, 50 miles from the border with Ukraine.

Very interesting read: Will Poland’s good-guy status on Ukraine help its standing in the EU?

"Mired in a bitter seven-year standoff with the EU over democratic backsliding and the rule of law, the government in Warsaw – whose populist brand of national-conservatism has also strained relations with Washington – now hopes the fallout from Vladimir Putin’s war will finally oblige the bloc to cut it some slack."

As Axios also noted; "in October 2020, Biden described Poland in the same breath as Hungary and Belarus while warning about the "rise of totalitarian regimes".

MOST READ

BBC News: The priest shot at a checkpoint
The Guardian: Russian troops blocking Sumy and Kharkiv - as it happened
The Financial Times: BlackRock chief Larry Fink says Ukraine war marks end of globalisation
Al Jazeera: Russia running out of precision missiles in Ukraine: Pentagon
The Irish Times: Sonia O'Sullivan: Transgender athletes cannot be allowed to compete in women's sport

TRUMP ERA POLITICS

Donald Trump has sued Hillary Clinton and a number of other Democrats, saying they made efforts to rig the election in 2016 by "tying his campaign to Russia".

"A court victory may be unlikely, but Mr Trump can tout the lawsuit itself to his supporters as evidence that he is fighting back against his accusers. And if the case is eventually dismissed, it will be cited as a sign the establishment is still out to get him." - BBC analysis

Meanwhile, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas - Virginia/Ginni Thomas - pursued "unrelenting efforts" to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Trump's favour. In a series of text messages by Thomas to Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, she said Biden's victory was "the greatest Heist of our History".

In an extraordinary moment, Alabama's Attorney General refused to say Joe Biden is "the duly elected and lawfully serving" president.

CLIMATE COVERAGE

The Great Barrier Reef in Australia is suffering a "mass bleaching event" - the fourth in six years.

What's happening? The coral is suffering due to rising temperatures and thus warmer seas.

"When water is too warm, corals will expel the algae (zooxanthellae) living in their tissues causing the coral to turn completely white. This is called coral bleaching. When a coral bleaches, it is not dead. Corals can survive a bleaching event, but they are under more stress and are subject to mortality." - Very helpful context from the National Ocean Service

WATCHING OUT FOR...

Edward VIII: Britain's Traitor King

At 8pm this Sunday, Channel 4 are set to air an extraordinary documentary looking at the alleged collusion between King Edward VIII - post abdication - with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime.

Who was he? King Edward VIII was the oldest son and heir of King George V, who died in January 1936. King Edward VIII only lasted as king until December of that year - citing the "woman I love" as one of his reasons for abdicating. That woman was Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee. The abdication became a crisis for the royal family.

Edward's young brother, 'Bertie', became King George VI - the father of the current Queen.

Anyway, according to a review of the documentary, there is evidence showing the great lengths Sir Winston Churchill went to in order to hide the depth of links between the former monarch and the Nazis.

ALSO WATCHING OUT FOR...

Bridgerton Season 2 releases on Netflix today. The Guardian gave it three stars, and said it is "back with less fun and far less sex".

You can watch the trailer by clicking 👇🏽 or here.