News Information and Media Site: Wednesday Briefing: Eight killed in shootings at Atlanta day spas

Today's top stories

Bloodshed in Atlanta, a landmark LGBT ruling in Japan, and a shake-up for the gig economy

Eight people, six of them women of Asian descent, were shot dead in a string of attacks on Atlanta-area day spas on Tuesday, and a man suspected of carrying out all of the shootings was arrested hours later in southern Georgia.

The violence unfolded days after U.S. President Joe Biden used a nationally televised speech to condemn a recent surge in hate crimes and discrimination against Asian-Americans.

The United States is facing the biggest surge of migrants at its southwestern border in 20 years, as the Biden administration races to handle an influx of children trying to cross alone.

Republican voters are increasingly hostile toward illegal immigrants, Reuters/Ipsos polling shows, an unease that the Republican Party is moving to capitalize on in its bid to retake Congress.

↑ Asylum-seeking migrants from Central America, who were airlifted from Brownsville to El Paso, Texas, and deported from the U.S., walk near the Paso del Norte international border bridge in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, March 16, 2021

WORLD

↑ Plaintiffs' lawyers and supporters outside Sapporo district court in Hokkaido, northern Japan, March 17, 2021

A Japanese court has ruled that not allowing same-sex couples to get married is "unconstitutional," setting a precedent in the only G7 nation not to fully recognise same-sex partnership.

Pope Francis has appealed for an end to bloodshed in Myanmar, saying: “Even I kneel on the streets of Myanmar and say ‘stop the violence’”. Myanmar’s most powerful Buddhist monks’ association has signaled a break with the authorities, accusing an “armed minority” of torture and killing innocent civilians.

Russian President Vladimir Putin likely directed efforts to try to swing the 2020 U.S. presidential election to Donald Trump, according to an American intelligence report. Washington is expected to impose sanctions on Moscow as soon as next week because of the allegations.

About 10.3 million people were displaced by climate change-induced events such as flooding and droughts in the last six months, the majority of them in Asia, a humanitarian organisation says.

Business

Initial public offerings of U.S. special purpose acquisition companies this week surpassed the $83.5 billion the sector raised in all of 2020. We look at the breakneck growth of what was once an obscure backwater of capital markets.

Uber drivers in Britain should receive the minimum wage for the whole time they are logged on to the app, two former drivers say after winning a court battle which could reshape the gig economy. Following a UK Supreme Court defeat, the company reclassified its more than 70,000 drivers in Britain as workers.

Airlines with planes idled by the pandemic are cutting costs by delaying some maintenance tasks like changing life vests, testing oxygen bottles and checking emergency exits under COVID-19 waivers from airplane manufacturers and regulators.

A lawsuit against General Motors alleging it concealed problems with a sensor renews a spotlight on the company's safety practices, seven years after the automaker vowed never to repeat a notorious failure to recall millions of vehicles with defective ignition switches later linked to 124 deaths.