Good morning. You’re studying the Up First e-newsletter. Subscribe right here to get it delivered to your inbox, and listen to the Up First podcast for all of the information it’s essential begin your day.

Today’s prime tales

Democratic and Republican voters in Michigan head to the primaries right this moment. President Biden and former President Donald Trump are expected to win their events’ nominations. Still, opponents of Biden’s help for Israel’s conflict in Gaza are calling for Democrats to ship a message by voting “uncommitted.”

“I Voted” stickers on a desk on the final day of early voting at a polling station inside Wayne County Community College Northwest Campus in Detroit on Feb. 25.

Bloomberg/Bloomberg through Getty Images

conceal caption

toggle caption

Bloomberg/Bloomberg through Getty Images

“I Voted” stickers on a desk on the final day of early voting at a polling station inside Wayne County Community College Northwest Campus in Detroit on Feb. 25.

Bloomberg/Bloomberg through Getty Images

• NPR’s Don Gonyea, who lives in Michigan, tells Up First that the disillusionment amongst voters is especially palpable in Arab and Muslim communities. He provides he used to listen to folks ponder a third-party vote in the course of the common election however by no means throughout main week. Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, the primary Arab American mayor of a majority Arab American metropolis, tells Up First host Leila Fadel that his group is “not sizable enough to make a candidate win” however “sizable enough to make a candidate lose.” Fadel studies that younger folks, progressives and notably younger Black voters she spoke to are additionally outraged and shared their worries over human rights in America.
• Negotiations for a short lived cease-fire in Gaza are ongoing. President Biden informed reporters final evening he hoped a deal could be announced by subsequent Monday.
• See what photojournalists have captured on the ground this past week in Gaza, Israel and Lebanon. 

An lively responsibility U.S. Air Force member has died after he set himself on hearth exterior the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., on Sunday. In a video main as much as the incident, Aaron Bushnell, 25, stated it was an act of protest in opposition to Israel’s conflict in Gaza and that he would “no longer be complicit in genocide.”

• Oxford University sociologist Michael Biggs research individuals who have died by self-immolation. He tells Morning Edition the “clearest parallel” to Sunday’s incident is Norman Morrison, a Quaker who set himself on hearth exterior the Pentagon to protest the Vietnam War. Biggs provides these acts are totally different from different acts of self-harm as a result of people are sometimes appearing on behalf of a political trigger, and there are not any clear situations of earlier “psychological instability” typically. Self-immolation tends to have a bigger impact in countries outside the West, based on Biggs. In the West, it could usually be seen as too excessive and “in a democracy, we see it as there are other ways of making your voice heard.”  

If you or somebody could also be contemplating suicide, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing 9-8-8 or the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741.

The Federal Trade Commission and 9 states are suing to dam the $24.6 billion merger of the 2 largest grocery store chains within the U.S. — Kroger and Albertsons. If they’re mixed, it will be the biggest U.S. grocery merger in latest historical past. Kroger owns shops like Ralphs, Harris Teeter, Fred Meyer and King Soopers. Albertsons, its prime direct competitor, owns shops like Safeway, Vons and Jewel-Osco. The FTC argues the merger would remove competitors for employees and customers.

• The corporations say the merger is “existential to surviving in today’s grocery business,” NPR’s Alina Selyukh studies. They say blocking the deal would solely assist its non-union nationwide retail giants, together with Walmart, Amazon and Costco. Selyukh provides that the case is attention-grabbing as a result of it is the primary time regulators will argue that mergers shouldn’t only protect consumers and prices but in addition employees.  

Picture present

Soldiers spend time swimming within the pool throughout a one-week course of rehab at a middle in northeastern Ukraine.

Claire Harbage/NPR

conceal caption

toggle caption

Claire Harbage/NPR

Soldiers spend time swimming within the pool throughout a one-week course of rehab at a middle in northeastern Ukraine.

Claire Harbage/NPR

It’s been two years since Russia invaded Ukraine. NPR photographer and visuals editor Claire Harbage has realized that life goes on for these in the course of a protracted conflict. Harbage, sharing her expertise of overlaying the conflict, contrasts the preliminary resilience and perseverance of the primary yr with the present sense of stagnation as folks confront inconceivable decisions for survival.

See pictures of civilians in Ukraine living their day-to-day lives whereas a conflict rages within the background.

Deep dive

Clock with february twenty ninth written on it. Leap yr idea. 3d illustration.

Olivier Le Moal/Getty Images

conceal caption

toggle caption

Olivier Le Moal/Getty Images

Clock with february twenty ninth written on it. Leap yr idea. 3d illustration.

Olivier Le Moal/Getty Images

This Thursday is a leap day — an additional day that is added to the Gregorian calendar each 4 years (aside from years divisible by 100, however not 400). The guidelines for leap years may be complicated, so Morning Edition requested experts in history, astronomy and economics to interrupt down why we have now leap days, the superstitions surrounding them, and an alternate calendar format.

• A yr — or the period of time it takes for the Earth to orbit the solar — is definitely 365.242190 days. Leap Days account for the additional .242190 of a day. 
• Many bissextile year superstitions revolve round marriage and love. An previous Irish custom says girls can suggest to males on leap day. In Greece and another nations, it is unfortunate to get married on leap day.
• Life may be difficult for leaplings — folks with leap day birthdays. Some on-line varieties do not acknowledge Feb. 29 as a legitimate start date.
• An economics professor argues that our present calendar is complicated and proposes a brand new one which implements an occasional leap week on the finish of the yr, so the dates could be on the identical day of the week yearly. 

3 issues to know earlier than you go

NASA astronaut Victor Glover might be making his second flight to house because the pilot of the Artemis II mission.

Riley McClenaghan/NASA

conceal caption

toggle caption

Riley McClenaghan/NASA

NASA astronaut Victor Glover might be making his second flight to house because the pilot of the Artemis II mission.

Riley McClenaghan/NASA

1. Victor Glover was 10 years previous when a televised house shuttle launch captivated him. He later grew to become the primary African American to spend an prolonged period of time on the International Space Station. He’ll quickly be among the many first humans to visit the moon in additional than 50 years.
2. Students on the Albert Einstein College of Medicine will obtain free tuition after Ruth Gottesman, a chairperson of the faculty’s board of trustees, donated $1 billion to the varsity. 
3. Much of the U.S. might be within the path of a complete eclipse in April. A gaggle of Harvard astronomers have created a sonification tool that turns the eclipse into sound in order that people who find themselves blind or have restricted imaginative and prescient can expertise the phenomenon too. (through Texas Standard)

This e-newsletter was edited by Majd Al-Waheidi. Mansee Khurana contributed.