Morning Coffee Link Roundup (3/25/23)

Today is Saturday, and tomorrow I am participating in the Knit for Food knitathon for hunger charities! Click here to sponsor me!

Conflict in Syria Escalates Following Attack That Killed a U.S. Contractor (NYT)

‘Over my dead body’: How Georgian protesters beat a Russian-style legal threat to their freedoms (Politico EU)

Horrifying: Oklahoma legislature censures nonbinary lawmaker as proposed gender-affirming care bans move forward (The 19th*)

LAUSD Reaches Deal With Support Staff On Salary Increases, Other Benefits, After Three-Day Strike Ends (LAist)

The Senate might go for . . . part of this? Maybe? NH House votes to codify abortion rights, remove penalties from 24-week ban (NHPR)

I’m a Covid researcher – and I have long Covid. That’s why I have to be part of the fight against it (The Guardian)

Male Birth Control Drug ‘Stops Sperm in Their Tracks’ in Study of Mice (Smithsonian)

Will Baseball’s New ‘Pitch Clock’ Threaten Ballpark Beer Sales? (Eater)

Severe Drought May Have Contributed to the Decline of the Hittites (Smithsonian)

How Reading Fairy Tales Influenced My Queerness (Book Riot)

And some longer reads:

Calculated evil: How Putin’s forces use war crimes and torture to erase Ukrainian identity (Politico EU)

Who is Guo Wengui? A Chinese billionaire, a friend of Steve Bannon’s and now an accused felon. (Grid)

NPR’s Michel Martin heads to ‘Morning Edition’ with a focus on ‘the stories that we don’t want to talk about’ (The 19th*)

The First Fossil Finders in North America Were Enslaved and Indigenous People (Smithsonian)

This was a useful overview: The 9 tiers of contenders in 2023 (MLB)