May 15, 2017

Monitoring group: U.S.-led strikes kill 23 in Syria

Natalia Sancha / AP

Air strikes, believed to have been carried out by a U.S.-led coalition on a eastern Syrian town held by ISIS early Monday morning, killing 23 people, mostly civilians, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, per Reuters. The England-based war monitoring group said the strikes hit near a residential part of the town of Albu Kamal, injuring dozens of others.

"They hit a residential area at 3:00am while people were sleeping, causing the high toll," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said, per Yahoo News. He added that ISIS had local headquarters stationed in the area.

Why this matters: An April Pentagon report found that U.S. coalition strikes on ISIS in Iraq and Syria had "unintentionally" killed least 352 civilians since the operation began in 2014. However human rights group say the number is much higher.

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Sara Fischer

Facebook spending $100 million to help news outlets in coronavirus crisis

Photo Illustration by Budrul Chukrut/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Facebook says it is spending $100 million to support news outlets around the world that have been impacted by the coronavirus, the company said Monday.

Why it matters: Whatever Facebook's motivation, this is a much-needed cash infusion at a critical time for the local news industry.

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Jim VandeHei

The next American struggle: Waiting out the coronavirus

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

There are now a lot of known knowns about the coronavirus: It's here, it's spreading, it's stressing hospitals, it's crippling the economy, it's slowed only by distance and isolation — and it's sure to get much worse before it gets much better.

Why it matters: Similarly, there is a sameness to the patterns and known unknowns. So now we hit the maddening stage of waiting.

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Sara Fischer, Kim Hart

Coronavirus pushes traditional businesses into the digital age

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

A slew of old-line industries that once hesitated to embrace digital technologies are now being forced to do so for the sake of survival.

Why it matters: Once consumers get used to accessing services digitally — from older restaurants finally embracing online ordering, or newspapers finally going all-digital — these industries may find it hard to go back to traditional operations.

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