Newsweek 3/11/2016

Columbia, South Carolina—Hillary Clinton greets supporters during a campaign stop on February 27. The former first lady won a resounding victory that day in the Palmetto State’s primary, thanks to strong support from African-American voters. Heading into Super Tuesday, Clinton was polling ahead of rival Bernie Sanders, despite criticism of her paid speeches to Goldman Sachs and other big banks. (Sanders has called for Clinton to release those speeches’ transcripts.) Instead of responding to Sanders, the Clinton campaign seems to be turning toward the general election, blasting the Republicans on everything from gun control to health care.…

Idomeni, Greece—Iraqi and Syrian refugees recover after Macedonian police fired tear gas at them on February 29. The men, women and children, many of whom are fleeing war and human rights abuses, tore down a barbed wire fence along the Greek border. Over the past year, Macedonia and its neighbors have built fences to stop the influx of more than a million refugees passing through on their way to Germany. In recent days, Macedonia has barred Afghans from entering and imposed stringent document controls on Syrians and Iraqis, drastically slowing the flow. Roughly 7,000 refugees are now struck on the Greek side of the border, living in squalor.…

Kafr Batna, Syria—A humanitarian convoy arrives in a rebel-held area on the outskirts of Damascus on February 23. A truce brokered by the U.S. and Russia went into effect on February 27 but does not include the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) and the Nusra Front, the country’s main jihadi rebel groups. Despite reports of Russian airstrikes on rebel locations, the truce held through that weekend. In recent weeks, humanitarian groups say, increased Russian airstrikes, among other things, have displaced nearly 70,000 people from the rebel-held city of Aleppo.…

Tehran, Iran—Clerics fill out ballots at a polling station on February 26. President Hassan Rouhani’s reformist allies won a landslide victory in Iran’s parliamentary elections, which ousted hard-liners from the Assembly of Experts, the body tasked with selecting the nation’s next supreme leader. The results were a victory for Rouhani, who championed the nuclear deal with the United States, and analysts say the election could mark a turning point for Iran, where roughly 60 percent of the population is under 30.…

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2016, was D-Day in Brazil, the launch of the most important battle yet in the war against Aedes aegypti, the mosquito that transmits the viruses that cause yellow fever, dengue, chikungunya and, most pressing today, Zika. Armed with insecticides and leaflets, and accompanied by thousands of soldiers, the Brazilian government—including President Dilma Rousseff and almost all the ministers—took to the streets to convince people to do everything they could to rid their homes of the mosquito. The country needed to do in a few months what it has not been able to accomplish in the 30-plus years since the first case of dengue, a potentially lethal, flu-like illness, was registered in Brazil in 1981: close ranks against the vector. Aedes aegypti is endemic in Brazil—the blood-sucking insect is…

13% Percentage of 414 films and TV shows made by NONWHITE DIRECTORS 3.4% Percentage of 109 major studio films made by FEMALE DIRECTORS For the past two years, the Academy Awards have been whiter than Chris Christie in a blizzard. This year, the lack of diversity spawned the #Oscars-SoWhite hashtag, and a few celebrities boycotted the show. Now a study from the University of Southern California titled “Inclusion or Invisibility?” confirms that the backlash isn’t just hype. The study looked at movies released theatrically in 2014 and TV shows airing from September 2014 to August 2015. The data revealed that people of color directed just 13 percent of the 414 films and television shows studied, and that women directed a mere 3.4 percent of the 109 major motion pictures studios released in 2014.…