| | | | | | | Presented By Walmart | | | | Axios AM | | By Mike Allen ·Apr 01, 2022 | | 🌷 Happy Friday. Welcome to April, but don't be an April fool. - Today's Smart Brevity™ count: 1,175 words ... 4½ mins. Edited by Zachary Basu.
| | | | | | 1 big thing: In Russia's corner |  | | | Destroyed Russian armored vehicles on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, yesterday. Photo: Rodrigo Abd/AP | | | | President Biden says Russia is "isolated from the world," but the rest of the world doesn't always see it that way. - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's friendly visits to the world's two biggest countries — India and China — suggest that Russia is hardly a pariah, Axios World author Dave Lawler writes.
Why it matters: While the sanctions on Russia are crippling, they're limited mainly to NATO members and other close U.S. allies like Australia, Japan and South Korea. Where it stands: Lavrov said Russia, China, and other like-minded countries would "move towards a multipolar, just, democratic world order." - Beijing reiterated that its relationship with Moscow — now even more vital for Russia due to the sanctions — "has no limits."
- OPEC countries elected to stand by a deal with Russia rather than comply with U.S. pressure to increase production.
- Saudi Arabia and the UAE, key members of that group, have both signaled support for Russia in recent days.
Flashback: 144 countries condemned the invasion in a UN vote March 2. - But few world leaders have openly criticized Vladimir Putin since.
Share this story. |     | | | | | | 2. COVID's hidden toll on teens |  | | | Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios | | | | From increased drug and alcohol use to high levels of reported abuse and feelings of mental distress, the pandemic wreaked some major havoc on the health of American teenagers, according to a new CDC report. - Why it matters: The stress and social isolation of the pandemic cut across age groups in ways we're still trying to understand, Axios' Tina Reed and Adriel Bettelheim write.
- "These data echo a cry for help," CDC acting principal deputy director Debra Houry said in a statement.
The survey of more than 7,700 high school students was taken between January and June 2021. The teens reported high levels of mental distress, risky health behaviors, economic instability and abuse. - Mental distress: More than 40% of teens said they persistently felt sad or hopeless during the past year, the survey found.
- Economic instability: 29% said a parent had lost a job during the pandemic. One in four said they'd experienced hunger.
- Risky behavior: Among the 43% of students who said they consumed alcohol, about 30% said they drank more during the pandemic. 22% said they drank six or more times in the past month.
- Abuse: More than half (55%) reported experiencing emotional abuse by a parent or other adult in the home, including being the target of swearing or insults. More than one in 10 said they'd experienced physical abuse.
Share this story. | | | | | | | | 3. Mapped: Vaccinated world |  Data: Our World in Data. Chart: Jared Whalen/Axios COVID vaccine supply kinks are easing. But in 44 countries — most of them in Africa — less than 20% of the population is fully vaccinated, Axios' Dave Lawler writes. | | | | | | | | A message from Walmart | | Walmart leads industry with new emissions reduction program | | |  | | | | Partnering with HSBC and CDP, Walmart is supporting businesses along its supply chain to enact sustainable emission reductions. Read more about the industry-leading action, just one of many from Walmart to avoid 1 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases from the global value chain by 2030. | | | | | | 4. 📷 1,000 words | | Photo: Vadim Ghirda/AP Irina poses with her cat, Alitsia, after she went back to retrieve it from the embattled town of Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, yesterday. | | | | | | | | 5. 💬 Axios interview: Eric Schmidt's China alarm |  | | | Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photo: John Lamparski/Getty Images | | | | Eric Schmidt, the billionaire former Google CEO, is working to rouse the U.S. to what he calls tech's biggest struggle yet: competition with China. - "We have to do whatever it takes," he said during a roundtable interview this week at Axios headquarters in Arlington, Va.
In Schmidt's eyes, China has already become a peer of the U.S. — and has a plan for how it wants to dominate critical fields, from semiconductors to AI, and clean energy to biotech, Axios' Ina Fried, Margaret Harding McGill and Ashley Gold write. - "The antitrust issue is a domestic issue," he said. "The real issue is we need to compete against China and win."
Keep reading. | | | | | | | | 6. U.S. offers "X" option on passport | | Blank passports at the Miami Passport Agency. Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images U.S. citizens will be able to select "X" as their gender on passport applications beginning April 11, the White House announced as part of a rollout of new policies on Transgender Day of Visibility. | | | | | | | | 7. 📚 Sneak peek: Peter Baker, Susan Glasser on Trump |  | | | Cover: Doubleday | | | | Peter Baker and Susan Glasser will be out Sept. 20 with a sweeping history of the Trump presidency, "The Divider," billed as "an ambitious first cut at this historical moment." - Baker, who is chief White House correspondent for The New York Times (and taught me to play poker back when we were both young Richmond correspondents), and Glasser, a staff writer for The New Yorker who wrote the weekly "Letter from Trump's Washington," have covered every president starting with President Bill Clinton.
Why it matters: The book aims to show Jan. 6 "was no violent outlier, but the inexorable culmination of four years of attacks on the institutions and traditions of American democracy," a forthcoming announcement says. "The Divider" is based on 300 interviews with White House officials, campaign advisers, cabinet officers, senators, House members, generals, diplomats, doctors and family members + two sit-down sessions with former President Trump at Mar-a-Lago. - This is the couple's third book together. Their first, "Kremlin Rising," published in 2005, was an early look at Vladimir Putin's Russia from their time as Moscow bureau chiefs for The Washington Post. Their second was "The Man Who Ran Washington," the bestselling biography of James A. Baker III, published in 2020.
Susan Glasser told me: "This is the first and so far only four-year history of Trump in the White House — a story that is even more mind-blowing and revelatory when you see it all laid out. We aimed to do what Lou Cannon did for Ronald Reagan or John Harris for Bill Clinton — take a first crack at an authoritative account of a consequential presidency. " - "The difference here is that it's also urgent reading, not just history but current events."
Peter Baker added: "We actually originally launched this as a book about the first impeachment in 2019. But it evolved as the presidency did. And ultimately we decided to try something no one else has done, which is capture the full four-year story." - "We basically have been working on it full-time since the day after the second impeachment trial last February."
More about the book ... Share this story. | | | | | | | | 8. 🏀 Parting shot: Saturday's game for the ages |  Data: Sports Reference. Chart: Jacque Schrag/Axios Saturday's Duke-UNC game — the bitter rivals' first-ever meeting in the NCAA men's tournament — is their 100th matchup of the Mike Krzyzewski era, Jeff Tracy and Kendall Baker write in Axios Sports. - And it's the retiring coach's last.
- Since Coach K arrived in Durham, his teams have gone 50-49 against Chapel Hill. Back surgery sidelined him for both losses in 1994, so his record is 50-47.
Why it matters: The rivalry. The stakes. The storylines. The all-time winningest coach. Somehow, this is real life, not a movie. - Will Duke win what would be Coach K's penultimate game, giving the Blue Devils a chance to tie UNC with six national championships?
- Or will the Tar Heels ruin the Blue Devils' date with destiny, pulling off the upset in one of the most anticipated college hoops games ever?
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