March 17, 2023 – Today’s Biggest News Stories

For many forestlands all over the US, spring is when firefighters intentionally set fires. During the seasons when there is a lower chance of wildfires, forest services conduct controlled burns, also known as prescribed burns or low-intensity burns, in which they create planned fires to maintain the health of the forest and prevent future wildfires.

Practiced for millennia by Native Americans, prescribed burns allow for a “natural pruning, it does a cleansing of the forest,” Jason Virtue, a fire officer at the Black Hills National Forest in South Dakota, told BuzzFeed News. The burns help maintain the “resiliency of the forest so it can sustain fires and [people do] not have to worry about fires taking out thousands and thousands of acres,” he added.

Prescribed burns have made a comeback in recent decades, after nearly a century of the federal government banning the practice. Federal fire policy prioritized fire suppression for most of the 20th century. But as destructive, uncontrolled wildfires — like the ones seen in California over the last several years — grow in frequency and intensity due to decades of fire suppression, climate change, and other factors, policy is once again returning to the Indigenous practice of controlled burning.

Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine

• A new UN-backed report released Thursday concluded that Russia was guilty of grave violations of international humanitarian and human rights laws. “The Commission is concerned with the number, the geographic spread, and the gravity of human rights violations and corresponding international crimes which it has documented during its mandate,” investigators wrote. “These have affected men, women, boys and girls of all backgrounds and ages.”
  • Investigators also found a few instances of Ukrainians violating international law, either by using cluster munitions and rocket-delivered antipersonnel land mines or by torturing at least two members of the Russian armed forces. 
• The report is likely to have little practical effect on Russia, but it will increase pressure for the country to be held accountable by the International Criminal Court.

SNAPSHOTS

Pregnancy is getting more dangerous in the US, new data shows, especially for Black people. The US has the worst maternal mortality rates among high-income countries; they’re more than double those of the second- and third-worst countries (France and Canada), according to the Commonwealth Fund.

A Florida man is accused of hiring someone to kill his wife’s ex-husband. Mario Fernandez Saldana, 35, has been charged with conspiracy to commit murder, solicitation to commit a capital felony, child abuse, and murder.

Once a cheater, always a cheater? Inspired by the Scandoval, we asked experts on the psychology of infidelity about what drives people to cheat — and if relationships born out of affairs can last.

People are eating dog food for protein gains and I’m frightened. Dog food does not meet the nutritional requirements of human food, just as human food does not meet the nutritional requirements of dog food. Eat some lentils for crying out loud.