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Daily Briefing

A shooter kills three children and three adults at a Tennessee school, Zelenskiy says Russian troops are holding the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant "hostage", and a study shows China spent $240 billion bailing out 'Belt & Road' countries.

Plus, an intriguing moon water source has been found.

By Kate Turton

Today's Top News

A child weeps while on the bus leaving The Covenant School, following a mass shooting at the school in Tennessee, March 27, 2023. Nicole Hester/USA Today Network via REUTERS

US school shooting

A heavily armed 28-year-old fatally shot three children and three adult staffers at a private Christian school the suspect once attended in Nashville, Tennessee. Police killed the assailant, who had drawn detailed maps of the school and left behind a "manifesto" and other writings that investigators were examining.
There have been 89 school shootings – defined as any incident in which a gun is discharged on school property – in the US in 2023, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database. We look at the history of major school shootings in the US.
President Joe Biden called on Congress to pass an assault weapons ban after the Nashville shooting. Biden said: "We have to do more to stop gun violence. It's ripping our communities apart."

Israel unrest, France protests, and the latest in Ukraine

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paused his signature plan to overhaul Israel's judiciary after a day of nationwide turmoil when workers joined a general strike against the proposal and hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets.
Facial recognition technology is helping Russian president Vladimir Putin curb dissent at home. A Reuters review of more than 2,000 court cases shows how Russia uses facial recognition to identify and sweep up the Kremlin's opponents.
Ukraine's president said Russian troops were holding the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant "hostage" and its safety could not be guaranteed until they left it. Russian troops have occupied the nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, since the early weeks of the invasion of Ukraine.
French police are on the lookout for more protesters bent on violence joining marches against planned pension reform, the chief of police in Paris said, hours before a new round of country-wide demonstrations and strikes. Europe is facing a wave of strikes - our Europe Editor Rachel Armstrong tells The World News Podcast why.

Business & Markets

China spent $240 billion bailing out 22 developing countries between 2008 and 2021, with the amount soaring in recent years as more have struggled to repay loans spent building "Belt & Road" infrastructure, according to a study published today. Almost 80% of the rescue lending was made between 2016 and 2021.
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is planning to split its business into six main units covering e-commerce, media and the cloud, the company said, adding that each of the units will explore fundraising or initial public offerings. US-listed shares of Alibaba rose 3.5% in trading before the bell.
The Biden administration plans to send Mexico an "act now or else" message in coming weeks in an attempt to break a stalemate in an energy trade dispute as bipartisan calls grow for the US to get tougher with its southern neighbor, according to people familiar with the discussions.
The European Union reached a provisional deal on the deployment of more service stations for cars running on electricity and alternative fuels as the bloc seeks to reduce the carbon footprint of its transport sector.
Commentary: Bullish bitcoin has been a surprise winner of the banking blowout. Yet investors aiming to amp up their bets face an ominous obstacle: a lack of liquidity that could trigger wild price swings. Sign up for the Reuters Crypto Wire newsletter for a weekly round-up of news about the tumultuous world of cryptocurrency.

The Wider Image: Sharks and tourists jostle for space

A newborn blacktip reef shark is silhouetted as it swims past the Maya Shark Watch Project's baited remote underwater video station, Thailand, February 27, 2023. REUTERS/Jorge Silva

On any given day in Thailand's Maya Bay, up to 40 blacktip reef sharks cruise in the cyan shallows while about 4,000 tourists visit its white-sand beach flanked by towering cliffs.

Shark numbers have improved since almost every last one was driven from the bay by the influx of tour boats and tourists keen to see the uninhabited idyll that was made famous as the set of Leonardo Di Caprio's 2000 thriller "The Beach".

This Reuters Special Report documents the efforts of authorities and conservationists as they try to keep tourists from swimming in the bay and driving away the baby sharks.

And Finally...

A screen shows footage of the Chang'e-5 Mission, during an event on China's lunar exploration program, at the National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Beijing, China, January 18, 2021. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang

Glass beads spawned in violent impacts from space rocks on the lunar surface have been found to have water trapped inside, offering what scientists describe as a potential reservoir of this precious resource for future human activities on the moon.

Scientists said an analysis of lunar soil samples retrieved in 2020 during China's robotic Chang'e-5 mission showed that these spheres of glass - rock melted and cooled - created in the impacts bore within them water molecules formed through the action of the solar wind on the moon's surface.

Read more here: Intriguing moon water source found in glass beads from impacts

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