What we're watching

Curiosity about Kamala – So many Democrats have announced plans to run against Donald Trump in 2020 that their party will hold debates in pairs on back-to-back nights to ensure everyone gets time to talk. There's no obvious frontrunner yet, but new data on recent Google searches reveals intense interest in California Senator Kamala Harris.

"Unsustainable Architecture" – The 6,000 workers who occupy the building that houses the Netherlands' foreign ministry and other government offices have been warned not to dance in the staff restaurant, install heavy cabinets in offices, or even stack too much photocopy paper in any one place for fear that suspect construction materials might lead the building's floors to collapse. Ironically, this building won an award for "sustainability" not long after it opened in 2017. We're watching with great interest to see how workers react, because your Signal team would never give up the notoriously raucous lunch-hour polka break that we enjoy here at GZERO Media headquarters.

What we're ignoring

Admonishing Erdogan – New Zealand's government is not happy that Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who faces important local elections on March 31, has tried to win votes for his party by showing theChristchurch mosque terrorist's own live-streamed video of the attack. We'll ignore any possibility this story will doing anything other than make angry people angrier, because Erdogan's response so far has been to criticize the governments of Australia and New Zealand for sending troops to fight Ottoman Turks during World War I.

Russian California – A Russian official reportedly told a state-run news agency this week that he thinks his government should ask the United States to "return" California to Russia, presumably because groups of Russians settled near Sonoma County during the early 19th century. The move would certainly provide a nice boost for Russia's economy—California's GDP ($2.7 trillion) is nearly twice as large as Russia's ($1.5 trillion). We doubt, however, that this idea will catch on with Californians.

Signal Salute

Ichiro — Signal hails one of the world's great athletes and a beloved icon on both sides of the Pacific. After many successful years with the Seattle Mariners, Ichiro Suzuki completed his remarkable baseball career yesterday, fittingly, to the cheers of both Japanese and American fans in the Tokyo Dome. #FirstBallotHallOfFame


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