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Willis Sparks
By Willis SparksApril 13, 2018
Willis Sparks
Willis Sparks is a senior editor for GZERO Daily. He is also a Director in the Global Macro practice at Eurasia Group, where he has worked since 2005. He has made speeches on international politics on every continent except Antarctica. Willis holds degrees from Brown University, the Juilliard School, Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, and the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris. He also holds an honorary degree from the Moscow Art Theatre School. A native of Macon, Georgia, Willis has worked as a stuntman at New York's Metropolitan Opera. As a child, he declined an opportunity to spend an afternoon riding the Great American Scream Machine, a rollercoaster, with Ronald McDonald, for money. He has never regretted that decision.
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15: India’s government announced on April 2 that it would blacklist journalists it accused of creating or spreading “fake news.” A wave of condemnation, including charges that Prime Minister Modi wanted to intimidate media away from legitimate criticism of government, followed. Modi withdrew the order 15 hours later.

44: The US admitted 44 Syrian refugees in the first three months of 2018. That’s down from 12,587 in 2016 and 6,577 in 2017. #YearningToBreatheFree

41: An astonishing 41 percent of American adults cannot identify Auschwitz as a Nazi concentration camp. That figure includes 66 percent of those aged 18–34.

11: About 14.8 million Brazilians now live in extreme poverty, an increase of 11 percent since 2016.

108: On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth in 108 minutes. To escape Earth’s gravitational pull, his Vostok 1 spacecraft exceeded speeds of 5 miles per second. Less than one month later, Mercury astronaut Alan Shephard became the first American in space.

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