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Margin call meltdown

The year is only three months old, but already there have been two ground-shaking blowups on Wall Street, both tied to hedge funds. First came the GameStop short-squeeze saga. Now comes what we can call the Archegos margin call meltdown. And in both cases, Washington predictably wants answers. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts is already calling for more oversight of the financial system after the forced selloff of billions of dollars in holdings linked to Bill Hwang's investment firm. The unwinding of Archegos Capital Management after banks forced it to dump investments accumulated through highly leveraged bets has roiled global markets. The growing clamor for transparency stems in part from Archegos having never disclosed its positions in certain publicly-traded companies. Here's your markets wrapDavid E. Rovella

Bloomberg is tracking the progress of coronavirus vaccines while mapping the pandemic globally and across America

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S&P Global Ratings downgraded its outlook on all Credit Suisse Group entities to negative from stable, citing its exposure to the Archegos crisis. The Swiss bank's bonds tumbled and the cost to protect its debt against default climbed to the highest since mid-2020, fueled by concern it faces billions of dollars in losses. Banks caught in the fallout may see total losses in the range of $5 billion to $10 billion, JPMorgan said. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group has also joined the list of financial firms dinged by one of the biggest margin calls of all time. Still confused? This  may help.

While Myanmar's junta made a show of honoring the nation's armed forces this past weekend, replete with parades of military personnel before special guests, other Myanmar soldiers were reportedly in the process of shooting dead more than 120 civilians, including young children. Since its Feb. 1 coup, the junta has killed more than 510 people by one count. Its leader, Min Aung Hlaing, who has the support of Russia and relative silence from China in the face of democracy protests, global condemnation and accusations of crimes against humanity, later threw himself a party

Myanmar coup leader Min Aung Hlaing. 

Photographer: Ye Aung Thu/AFP

The World Health Organization's chief said a mission to study the origins of the coronavirus in China didn't adequately analyze the possibility of a lab leak. The White House criticized the report by the WHO (which has been accused by the U.S. of bending to Beijing's will when it comes to the pandemic), calling it incomplete while faulting data and access provided by China. Elsewhere, Germany plans to recommend that AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine be used only for people older than 60 while in England more than half the population may now have antibodies. In Spain, masks are now compulsory on beaches while Italy is to impose new quarantine rules on travelers. Here's the latest on the pandemic.

Adding more fuel to the U.S.-China fire, an annual State Department human rights report accused Beijing of crimes against humanity while reaffirming a decision to label China's treatment of minority Uyghurs in its western region of Xinjiang as genocide

Dozens of people were said to have been killed in a raid on a Mozambique coastal town filled with expatriate workers as an upsurge of violence by Islamist groups targets energy development there. Many other people remain missing.The onslaught has threatened billions of dollars worth of investments in one of Africa's poorest nations.

As onlookers pleaded with White Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin to take his knee off of the neck of a defenseless and unarmed Black man, George Floyd, Chauvin gave them a "cold" and "heartless" stare, a witness to the killing testified at Chauvin's murder trial.

Prosecutors on March 29 told jurors that Derek Chauvin of the Minneapolis Police Department murdered a defenseless and unarmed George Floyd.

Photographer: Christian Monterrosa/Bloomberg

The nine U.S. federal agencies that were infiltrated by suspected Russian attackers last year have largely eradicated the malware from their networks and are now looking for lingering hackers, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

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Antigua, Barbuda Tourists Bring Covid With Them

Throughout 2020, Antigua and Barbuda's population of 100,000 saw just 159 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and five related deaths, giving the islands and their 365 beaches the appearance of a save haven. As a result, almost 15,000 travelers flew or boated over in December.That began a wave of sustained tourism larger than any other throughout the pandemic. But as more visitors arrived, so did the cases of Covid-19.

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