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Good morning.
Here’s what you need to know:
• Democratic showdown.
Hillary
Clinton and Bernie Sanders debate tonight in Brooklyn, just days before
the New York primary on Tuesday, for their first meeting in more than a
month (9 p.m. Eastern CNN). Here’s what to watch for.
Their reactions to five big banks’ failing to show “credible” plans for dealing with bankruptcy characterize their sharp differences. Mrs. Clinton has criticized calls by Mr. Sanders to break up the “too big to fail” banks.
At least 20,000 people attended a rally for Mr. Sanders at Washington Square Park in Manhattan on Wednesday night.
#BringBackOurGirls.
On the second anniversary of the abduction of 276 Nigerian schoolgirls,
the government is scrutinizing a video showing girls identifying
themselves as students captured by Boko Haram militants. The footage
offers glimmers of hope to their families.
The kidnappings led to the social media campaign #BringBackOurGirls, but only about 50 of the girls have managed to escape.
• Rebuke for Chicago police.
A task force appointed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel has concluded that the Police Department is plagued by systemic racism. It issued 100 recommendations.
While
blacks make up about one-third of the city’s population, 74 percent of
the 404 people shot by the Chicago police from 2008 to 2015 were black,
the report said, and they were the subjects in 72 percent of the
thousands of street stops that did not lead to arrests during the summer
of 2014.
• On Capitol Hill.
Senators have reached a deal to act on a comprehensive energy bill, breaking a three-month partisan standoff over the tainted water scandal in Flint, Mich.
Residents of the city are going to extraordinary lengths to find places to shower in lead-free water. While officials say that bathing in the water isn’t harmful unless some is ingested, many are skeptical.
• The F.B.I.’s early win over encryption.
Newly declassified records show how F.B.I. hackers worked to defeat encryption more than 10 years before the agency’s recent dispute with Apple over access to a locked iPhone.
The agents couldn’t decode the data themselves, but they found a clever workaround.
Business
• The new $289 Kindle Oasis e-reader from Amazon has a shape meant to mimic a book, and it includes a case with a battery that extends charge time.
• What’s an online bargain? In Internet “discounts,” inconsistent list prices can make it tough to figure out what a product is really worth.
• Federal regulators have threatened stiff sanctions against Theranos, the blood-testing company, including closing down its main laboratory.
• A.T.M. fraud is surging. Here are some precautions you can take.
• Here are snapshots of the U.S. and global markets.
Noteworthy
• Saving the best for last.
The Golden State Warriors
defeated the Memphis Grizzlies for their 73rd win, surpassing the
record for most victories in one season, set by the Chicago Bulls 20
years ago.
Kobe Bryant scored 60 points in the final game of his career.
In the Stanley Cup playoffs, the St. Louis Blues scored in overtime, for a 1-0 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks, the defending champions. The Lightning and Penguins also won.
• Medical milestone.
A young man who broke his neck playing in the ocean has regained some control over his right hand. Computers connected to a chip implanted in his brain carry electrical signals directly to his lower arm.
• Escape artist.
Inky, an octopus
living in New Zealand’s national aquarium, fled through a small gap in
his tank cover, crossed a floor and went down a drainpipe to the ocean.
The escape happened months ago, but it only recently came to light.
• Fresh reads.
The new lineup of baseball books include: “The Arm,” about the billion-dollar pitching industry, and “The Selling of the Babe,” about the trade of Babe Ruth. In “Game 7, 1986,”
a former starting pitcher writes that drugs were a “big part of our
approach to the game” as the New York Mets beat the Red Sox in the World
Series.
Those aspiring to be professional athletes may be interested in “Peak.”
One of the authors is the psychologist whose research formed the basis
of the “10,000-hour rule,” which holds that it takes about 10,000 hours
of practice to achieve mastery in a field.
• Recipes of the day.
Some vegetarian dishes work for carnivores, especially if the dish is chili.
If you’re ever looking for a simple side, sautéed spinach never fails.
Back Story
Teachers
have been correcting errors in written language from time immemorial,
and one colonial American was so bothered by the dismal state of English
instruction, he devoted most of his life to improving it.
Noah
Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language was published on
this day in 1828. He was nearly 70 at the time of his crowning
achievement.
After
the American Revolution, Webster was a young teacher in Connecticut,
where children learned from British textbooks in one-room schoolhouses.
At the time, spelling was plagued by inconsistencies. That bothered him. To start, he eliminated “u” from words like “colour” and “honour.”
That was a change introduced in what would come to be known as the “Blue-Backed Speller”
because of its blue cover. It sold hundreds of thousands of copies. For
his next project, he hoped to give the U.S. a kind of national
independence in language.
A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language
(1806) further Americanized British spellings, like swapping the order
of the “r” and “e” in “theatre” and “centre.” It also cataloged words in
use, but not listed in any dictionary, like “caucus,” “census” and
“presidential.”
An
additional 22 years of work produced his 70,000-entry behemoth,
including 5,000 words never before included in an English lexicon. By
the time he died in 1843, he had largely united the country in language.
Your Morning Briefing is published weekdays at 6 a.m. Eastern and updated on the web all morning.
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