Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.
Ethnic guerrillas in Myanmar look set to seize an important town on the Thai border from military
Summary: Earlier this week, the Karen National Liberation Army in Myanmar claimed to have almost taken control of a major trading hub called Myawaddy, which is located along the country’s border with Thailand.
Context: This marks just one of many recent defeats for the Myanmar military government, which launched a coup and took control of the country from the elected government in February of 2021, suppressing nonviolent protests in the aftermath of that coup, which seems to have sown the seeds for the array of guerrilla efforts plaguing them across the country, today; in October of last year, three different rebel groups formed an alliance and kicked off a significant offensive in the northeastern portion of Myanmar, and that snowballed into the sequence of defeats and retreats that have dogged the military government leading up to today.
—The Associated Press
Google says it will destroy browsing data collected from Chrome’s Incognito mode
Summary: As part of a settlement for a lawsuit filed against the company in 2020, Google has said it will destroy what it calls “billions of data points” that it collected from users of its Chrome browsers while those users had Incognito mode activated, and that it will also update its disclosures about what sorts of data it collects when that feature in is use.
Context: The crux of this lawsuit is that everything about Chrome’s Incognito mode, from its icon to its name, implies that folks using it won’t be tracked, and that they can thus safely and privately engage in whatever online behavior they choose, but that’s not the case—Google still monitors Incognito activities, and passes on some of that data to the sites they visit; the lawsuit initially asked for up to $5 billion in damages, citing federal wiretapping and California privacy laws, and while some individuals are now filing separate cases aiming to get payouts for these alleged privacy violations, the court didn’t approve financial damages in this case, provided the company delete the data they collected from these users, and that they make more clear how this function works, moving forward.
—Engadget
Arizona reinstates 160-year-old abortion ban
Summary: On Tuesday, Arizona’s Supreme Court upheld a law from 1864 that bans all abortions, except to save a woman’s life, though the court put the ruling on hold while a lower court sorts out whether or not it’s constitutional.
Context: This ruling is notable in part because of how harsh it is, not making any exceptions in cases of rape or incest, and in allowing for the prosecution and imprisonment of doctors who perform abortions in the state, and it’s also notable because the issue of abortion is looking to be a key factor in the upcoming US elections, to the point that Republican candidates—those in Arizona but also former President and once-more Presidential Candidate Trump—are backtracking on previous, anti-abortion positions, softening their language on the matter in an attempt to give Democratic competitors less ammunition to use against them in the run-up to that vote; the state’s attorney general, who’s a Democrat, has said she wouldn’t enforce this law if it does end up sticking.
—The New York Times
For the first time, the NCAA women’s basketball final attracted more viewers than the men’s championship game, pulling in just shy of 18.9 million views versus 14.8 million for the men’s game.
—Axios
1.76%
Percent of Canada’s GDP the country intends spend on its military by 2030, following a new pledge by the government to boost its defense budget.
That’s still short of the 2% target NATO nations are supposed to aim for, but it’s up from the current 1.4%.
—Reuters
One Sentence News / April 12, 2024