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SBF sentenced, impeachment advanced and unseasonable dengue

 
Today's NATIONAL story

Bankman-Fried gets 25 years for fraud

What happened
A federal judge in New York on Thursday sentenced Sam Bankman-Fried to 25 years in prison for defrauding customers, money laundering and other crimes tied to the collapse of his cryptocurrency exchange FTX. He was also ordered to forfeit $11 billion in assets.

Who said what
Judge Lewis Kaplan said Bankman-Fried deserved a long sentence because he lied at trial, showed no remorse and there's significant "risk that this man will be in a position to do something very bad in the future." Bankman-Fried, 32, said he is "sorry about what happened at every stage" and "my useful life is probably over now."

The commentary
The stiff sentence sets a "crucial" example for aspiring crypto fraudsters, Crypto Council for Innovation CEO Sheila Warren told The Washington Post. "What we don't want to do is incentivize people to say, 'Oh, you just pay a big fine and do whatever you want.' No, you go to jail if you lie, if you steal."

What next?
Kaplan said he will advise that Bankman-Fried be sent to a low- or medium-security prison near San Francisco. The fallen "crypto king" will probably serve 17 to 20 years, The Wall Street Journal said, citing prison consultants. Bankman-Fried is young enough "he will see the light of day," Ira Lee Sorkin, whose client Bernie Madoff died in prison, told The New York Times. "But he is going to spend a lot of time in a cell."

 
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Today's POLITICS story

House GOP starts Mayorkas impeachment clock

What happened
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) announced Thursday that his caucus will deliver two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate on April 10, following February's razor-thin vote to impeach Mayorkas.

Who said what
Johnson said House Republicans and the "American people" agree Mayorkas deserves impeachment for the "historic crisis" at the U.S.-Mexico border. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called the impeachment effort a "new low" for House Republicans, who "failed to produce any evidence that Secretary Mayorkas has committed any crime."

The commentary
There is "little doubt" the Democrat-controlled Senate will side with Mayorkas, The New York Times said. Johnson demanded a full Senate trial, but Schumer has suggested "Senate Democrats will move to dismiss" the case, ABC News said. Some Senate Republicans have also "expressed doubts that Mayorkas' actions rise to the 'high crimes and misdemeanors' standard" for impeachment, NPR News said.

What next?
Schumer said senators will be sworn in as impeachment jurors April 11.

 
 
Today's Health Story

Dengue hits the Americas hard and early

What happened
The Pan American Health Organization, the World Health Organization's regional offshoot, warned Thursday that dengue is walloping the Americas this year, with 3.5 million cases of the mosquito-borne virus and 1,000 deaths in three months, versus a record 4.5 million cases for all of 2023. Puerto Rico declared a dengue epidemic on Monday.

Who said what
The fast and widespread dengue surge is "cause for concern," said PAHO Director Jarbas Barbosa. Most of the cases are in Brazil and elsewhere in South America, where it is seasonably warm and wet, but "we are also seeing an uptick" in Central America and the Caribbean, "where transmission is usually higher in the second half of the year," and in places with no history of dengue.

The commentary
Dengue's dry-season spread in the Caribbean, from "people traveling" and environmental changes, "is really kind of a heads up, a warning sign," Dr. Albert Ko, a Yale epidemiologist, told The Washington Post.

What next?
The PAHO is urging regional and national efforts to control dengue's spread and to treat patients early so the death rate stays low.

 
 

It's not all bad

Leading an active lifestyle results in better sleep, according to new research from Reykjavik University in Iceland. The study, published in the journal BMJ Open, found that people who engage in regular exercise, like jogging or swimming, at least twice weekly were 42% less prone to insomnia and more likely to sleep at least six hours a night. The research demonstrates how maintaining good exercise habits is "vital to preventing insomnia from taking hold," The Times said.

 
 
Under the radar

The relationship between Germany and Israel carries a unique historical and symbolic significance. Berlin's political leaders declare Israel's security to be a "raison d'etre for the German republic," said Politico. They even have a word for it: staatsrason. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz made it clear on a trip to Israel shortly after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks: "German history and our responsibility arising from the Holocaust make it our duty to stand up for the existence and security of the State of Israel." 

The notion of a "special relationship" with Israel took hold in Germany in the 1970s. In recent years, it has received "near-universal approval among Germany's political class," said Leandros Fischer in the Journal of Palestine Studies in 2019. 

On a trip to Berlin last year, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan claimed Germany was too absorbed by historical remorse to grasp the reality of the Middle East. It's a sentiment reflected by the far-right party AfD (Alternative for Deutschland), which has surged in the polls, aided in part by its rejection of Germany's culture of remembrance as a "mere schuldkult (cult of guilt)," said Joerg Lau in The Guardian. 

"The idea that Germany suffers from an overdose of vergangenheitsbewaltigung — the German term for dealing with the Nazi past — is not new," Lau said. But to believe the German political establishment is "captive to an oppressive mindset that limits its ability to speak out against Israel" is a "dangerous conspiracy theory that needs to be debunked."

 
 
On this day

March 29, 1974

A group of farmers digging a well near Xi'an, China, discovered the massive Terracotta Army. The collection of terra cotta sculptures was created as a funeral shrine for Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a unified China, sometime in the 200s BCE. About 8,000 sculptures, including humans, horses and vehicles, have since been uncovered.

 
 
TODAY’S newspaperS

Most Friday newspapers feature fallen "crypto king" Sam Bankman-Fried's sentencing and the beginning of efforts to clear the collapsed Key Bridge from Baltimore Harbor. The Wall Street Journal marks the one-year anniversary of reporter Evan Gershkovich's detention in Russia with a striking special front cover dominated by a void, captioned: "His story should be here." Surrounding this testament to Gershkovich's "year of stolen stories, stolen joys, stolen memories" are related articles about other Russian detainees and authoritarian crackdowns on journalism around the globe. 

► See the newspaper front pages

 
 
Tall tale

Fighting dirty

A pod of sperm whales off the coast of Australia released a "big dark bubble" of poop to fend off a possible attack by at least 30 orcas. Scientists passing by on a boat witnessed this "rarely seen defense mechanism" earlier this month, Live Science said. The whales formed a circle and used their tails to spread the feces around, which stunned the orcas. This "defense defecation" worked, and the orcas quickly left the area.

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Theara Coleman, Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Harold Maass, Devika Rao, Rafi Schwartz and Peter Weber, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Yuki Iwamura / Bloomberg via Getty Images; Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images; Luis Robayo / AFP via Getty Images; Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images