Bird flu, AT&T data breach, and onions.

Happy Monday! Today’s edition is 876 words, a 3 minute read.

First-time reader? Sign up here!

Big Stories

Bird flu infects cows

Livestock at several dairy farms across the US have tested positive for bird flu.

• The US Department of Agriculture confirmed Friday that cows in Texas, Kansas, and Michigan have the virus. Additional herds in New Mexico and Idaho are expected to test positive also. It’s the first time the disease has affected dairy cattle.

• Bird flu — which attacks the bird’s respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts — is often deadly to avian populations. It can spread from wild birds to commercial poultry operations, marine mammals, and humans.

• The USDA says the country’s commercial dairy supply is safe and the outbreak won’t affect the supply because dairies are required to divert or destroy any milk from sick livestock. Pasteurization also kills bacteria and viruses, including influenza.

• Cows sickened by bird flu have recovered “after isolation with little to no associated mortality reported,” per the USDA. Thankfully, this differs from poultry operations, where entire chicken and turkey flocks must be killed when infected.

AT&T data breach

The personal information of over 70 million current and former AT&T customers has been leaked on the dark web.

• AT&T announced a data breach that affected 7.6 million current account holders and 65.4 million former account holders. The breach happened about two weeks ago but hasn’t impacted the company’s operations.

• The compromised data set varies from person to person but could include social security numbers, full names, email and mailing addresses, phone numbers, and birth dates. The company hasn’t publicly identified the source of the leak.

• AT&T is reaching out to all 7.6 million affected customers and has reset their passcodes. It also plans to give free identity theft and credit monitoring services to those impacted by the breach.

• Millions of wireless customers have fallen victim to data breaches in the last five years and the attacks aren’t isolated to one provider. Last December, the Federal Communications Commission updated its 16-year-old data breach notification rules to ensure telecommunications providers adequately protect sensitive customer information.

Cherokee Nation wants federal law fix for Black tribal citizens

The Cherokee Nation is pushing to amend a 140-year-old federal law that governs the criminal jurisdiction of tribal citizens based on "blood quantum."

• The tribe aims to update the law, which relies on outdated ideas of "Indian blood," to ensure fair treatment for all citizens. Under the 1885 law, a person must be of a certain percentage Native American blood to be prosecuted in federal or tribal court instead of state court.

• The move by the Cherokee Nation comes as the Oklahoma tribe is granting citizenship to the descendants of formerly enslaved Black people once owned by tribal members. These enslaved people — known as Freedman — also made the journey to Indian Territory when the Five Tribes were forcibly removed from their homelands in the 1830s. By 1861, eight to ten thousand Black people were enslaved throughout Indian territory. After the Civil War, the Freedmen received their freedom in 1866.

• In 2020, the Supreme Court decided that a larger portion of eastern Oklahoma is part of an Indigenous reservation, preventing state officials from charging Native Americans for crimes they commit on tribal land there. However, some Black tribal members are still being prosecuted because they lack “Indian Blood”. The Cherokee Nation plans to step up their lobbying efforts in Congress to make the changes to the federal law.

Little Stories

• Thunderstorms and tornadoes are forecast to move eastward across the US following California's rainy season. Severe weather will stretch from the southern plains to the mid-Atlantic and Gulf Coast states over the next three days, affecting around 50 million Americans. (More)

• Pope Francis called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages in his Easter Sunday address at the Vatican. Francis has been in poor health recently but rallied to speak to the 60,000 people who turned up. (More)

• Turkey's main opposition party grabbed significant election wins in Istanbul and Ankara, dealing a blow to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's hopes of regaining control of the cities less than a year after he secured a third term. Ekrem Imamoglu of the secular opposition CHP secured his second win since 2019. It is the first nationwide defeat for Erdogan's party in 21 years. (More)

• Las Vegas’ Tropicana resort will close on Tuesday to make way for a new Major League Baseball stadium that will host the Oakland A’s starting in 2028. The hotel opened in 1957 and is one of only two remaining from the 1950s. It will be demolished later this year.  (More)

• College Basketball’s March Madness continued over the weekend. Purdue beat Tennessee 72-66 to reach its first Final Four since 1980 while N.C. State dropped Duke to reach its first Final Four since 1983. On the ladies’ side, two teams advanced to the Final Four. South Carolina remained undefeated with its win over Oregon State while N.C. State got past Texas on seven made 3s from Aziaha James. (More)

Extra Credit

In pictures: Easter celebrations around the world. 

Mapping the attendance at religious services in the US. 

One of the world’s rarest and most beautiful hummingbirds. 

Why onions make us cry.