Super Tuesday Sets the Stage for a Biden and Sanders Face-Off

TLDR: Biden made a major comeback -- this is a two-person race now.

What’s So “Super” About Super Tuesday?

Super Tuesday is the most popular day to hold primaries or caucuses, and it’s the earliest possible day if you’re not one of the four early-voting states (Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina). With 14 states and one US territory participating, over a third of all delegates are decided on Super Tuesday.

For context, there are 3,979 total pledged delegates up for grabs in the primary elections (awarded based on votes). Candidates need at least 1,991 of them to secure the nomination, and Super Tuesday states award 1,357 in total.

Why Does It Matter?

This year’s Super Tuesday was kind of an even bigger deal than usual because of its timing. It happened right as the battle between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders really ramped up (due largely to moderate candidates like Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg dropping out and endorsing Biden just days before the vote).

Okay, So How Did It Go?

At the time of publication, here are the delegates from Super Tuesday that have been awarded so far:

Joe Biden: 380
Bernie Sanders: 328
Elizabeth Warren: 28
Mike Bloomberg: 12
Tulsi Gabbard: 1

(Delegates aren’t all awarded in a winner-take-all fashion. We know who won each state, but we’ll have to wait on final vote counts to see exactly how all the delegates get distributed.)

What Does This Mean for the Rest of the Election?

Although a few other folks managed to pick up delegates yesterday, make no mistake -- this will be a race between Biden and Sanders.

Both Biden and Sanders scored some major wins on Super Tuesday (the former with older, Southern, and African-American voters and the latter with younger and Latino voters). Expect a close battle ahead.

The 32 remaining states and four remaining territories will hold their primaries and caucuses through June, but because of the way the delegate math works out, we’ll likely have a nominee settled before then.

Take Action: Take 2 minutes to make sure you’re registered to vote. Then encourage your friends to do the same by running an online voter registration drive.

Powered By Streams and Downloads, BTS Makes Music History

K-pop band BTS recently released a new album, and their single “On” debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart -- the highest debut chart position ever for a Korean group. The song’s music video also became the biggest YouTube premiere of all time, with 1.54 million viewers tuning in.

As for their album, Map of the Soul: 7 has since risen to No. 1 in the five largest music markets in the world, and BTS became the first Korean group to earn 10 No. 1 spots on Billboard’s World Albums chart.

Not only is BTS’ success historic for Korean artists, it’s representative of a major shift within the music industry -- one that relies less on radio play (which is often determined by corporate decision-makers) and more on fan-powered streams and downloads. For international and indie artists who have been historically disadvantaged in the realm of radio distribution, this kind of non-traditional distribution is a gamechanger.

You can thank the BTS ARMY and their massive support for helping shift the power back to regular old listeners -- not major industry players. (Y’know, when they’re not donating their ticket refunds to coronavirus relief or advocating for access to mental health resources.)

Take Action: The music industry isn’t the only thing that BTS is shaking up. Members like RM and Suga have broken K-pop taboos to speak up about their mental health. Help the guys in your life get the mental health help they need too.

Supreme Court Leaves Gun Bump Stock Law Untouched

In a win for common sense gun policies, the Supreme Court refused to hear a case challenging a federal ban on bump stocks (rifle attachments that allow a weapon to fire at nearly the same rate as a machine gun).

The issue of bump stocks gained public attention following the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, where a gunman used multiple rifles outfitted with bump stocks to kill 58 people and injure over 800 more in the span of 11 minutes. This led the Justice Department to ban the devices by re-classifying bump stocked weapons as machine guns.

Gun rights groups attempted to challenge the policy through federal court cases, eventually appealing to the Supreme Court. The court decided not to hear the case, leaving the bump stock ban in place nearly a year after it first went into effect.

Take Action: Demand that Congress pass background checks and a strong red flag law that will help prevent gun violence tragedies.

“We talked about being heard, and about how us students in high school are just as powerful as any other adult...It was amazing to be able to share that, so that lawmakers can know that students need to go vote too.” - 17-year-old Lizbeth Velazquez who, along with her classmates, urged Illinois lawmakers to pass
a bill that allows eligible high schoolers take time off from school to vote. The bill was just signed into law by Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

Why aren’t more people talking about… how Apple just agreed to pay a $500 million settlement after admitting to artificially slowing down older iPhones?

Meanwhile, in Australia… one woman has rescued 14 injured and orphaned opossums displaced by the Australian bushfires.

My hero today is… 5-year-old Noah Wood, who helped his 2-year-old sister and pet dog escape a house fire, and then woke up his uncle next door to alert the rest of his family.

Today in viral cuteness… these lil’ newborn cheetah cubs. Besides being adorable, they’re also the first cheetahs to ever be born through in vitro fertilization!

I’m obsessed with… the pupusas that my friend and I made this past weekend! While I’ve eaten many, many pupusas in my life, this was the first time I actually tried making them myself. Several panicked phone calls to my parents and a few scalded fingers later, and there they were in all their lumpy glory.