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Hello and Happy St. Patrick's Day! I’m AllSides Managing Editor Henry A. Brechter. It’s Friday, March 17, 2023. Here’s your AllSides balanced briefing for today.

 

TOP STORIES FOR MARCH 17

See news from left-, center-, and right-rated sources with our Headline Roundups and Balanced Web Search results on these stories:

  • The U.S. doesn't have "operational control" of the southern border, Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz told a House Committee this week. That contradicts remarks Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas made last year.

  • The U.S. military released footage on Thursday of a Russian fighter jet colliding with a U.S. surveillance drone over the Black Sea. Meanwhile, Russia is reportedly attempting to recover debris from the crash site.

  • New rules proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would require public water systems to more closely monitor "forever chemicals" in drinking water that have been linked to cancer.

  • Poland and Slovakia agreed to send Ukraine fighter jets, fulfilling a request from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for more advanced weapons.

 

SPLIT NARRATIVES ON SILICON VALLEY BANK

Did Trump-era deregulation contribute to Silicon Valley Bank's demise? Or did the bank's "woke" investment priorities play a role?

Many agree that SVB's bond-heavy portfolio and recent interest rate hikes set the bank up for failure. But some say politics played a role as well.

These split narratives spawned misleading conclusions from across the spectrum. Read more from our Misinformation Watch series.

 

DIVERSE PERSPECTIVES

See analyses and opinions from left-, center-, and right-rated sources with our Headline Roundups on these stories:

  • The Biden Administration is pressuring ByteDance, TikTok's Chinese parent company, to sell the app or potentially be banned in the U.S.
  • New child labor laws in Arkansas sparked debate on increasing work opportunities for minors versus fueling child exploitation.

 

BY THE NUMBERS

A recent survey suggests media bias is as pervasive as ever.

A new Gallup/Knight Foundation survey found that a majority (55%) of Americans perceived "a great deal" of political bias in news coverage.

This was reported as an all-time high, surpassing those that said the same in 2017 and 2019-2020 (45% and 46%, respectively).

What does this mean for media trust and misinformation concerns? Read more on our blog.

 

WHAT TO WATCH FOR NEXT WEEK

See Balanced Web Search results from left-, center-, and right-rated sources on these stories:

  • A new Supreme Court session kicks off on Monday.
  • The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee will hold hearings "to examine Moderna considering quadrupling the price of the COVID vaccine."

 

TODAY'S WEATHER

See today’s weather radar and temperature maps for your area from the NOAA.

 

GOOD NEWS

102-year-old Jean Bailey and the fitness training sessions she leads at her senior living community in Nebraska earned a feature on Good Morning America.

 

Have comments on this briefing? Email us!

Henry A. Brechter is the Managing Editor of AllSides. He has a Center bias.